City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

DAREBIN HERITAGE STUDY STAGE 2Not to be outdone, the following October the Fairfield Baptists built their church in one day,however they did lay the foundations a week earlier. The Baptists also built a chapel in HighStreet, Regent in 1915, close to the site of the old Particular Baptist chapel and the new churchretained the pulpit and Bible from the old one. However there was no actual connectionbetween those early Particular Baptists and the twentieth century Baptists who opened the newchurch.A Church of Christ was also built in Northcote, on the corner of Bastings Street and ProspectGrove, however no details of this are available, except it was the church in which DougNicholls was converted to Christianity. In 1939, Nicholls became a Church of Christ pastor,and began his ministry to the Fitzroy Aboriginal community (Darebin Historic Encyclopedia;Lemon, 1983:202).Places of worship that reflect post-war immigrationIn the second half of the twentieth century, the religious character of Darebin began to changemarkedly with the arrival of immigrants from Europe, the Middle East and Asia, who broughtwith them religious traditions new to Darebin, in particular the Eastern Orthodox churchesand Islam. Since the 1990s, the Buddhists have also been represented in Darebin.ChristianDue to declining church attendance in the traditional English-speaking churches and theformation of the Uniting Church in Australia, a number of the older Protestant churches weremade redundant. Many of these churches were taken over by immigrants arriving from Europebrought their religions such as the Greeks, Macedonians and Christians from the Middle Eastwho brought the Orthodox traditions.A church honouring the Macedonian Saints Cyril and Methodius was formed in Fitzroy in1950, but in 1966 it moved to the former Anglican Church of the Epiphany in High StreetNorthcote, and became known as the Macedonian - Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church. Theformer Yann Street Methodist Church became the Greek Orthodox Church of St Cyril and StMethodius and ministers to Macedonians of Greek origin (Jupp, 1988:688-9). In Northcotethe Little Sisters of the Poor Convent has become the Holy Monastery of Axion Estin of theGreek Orthodox Church.Darebin is also home to Melbourne’s Protestant Macedonian community, who are descendantsof Methodists and Baptists evangelised by American missionaries in the nineteenth century.The Macedonian Evangelical United Church on the corner of Wood Street and MurphyGrove, East Preston is a Uniting Church Parish, with links to the Evangelical MethodistChurch in the former Yugoslavia. The Baptist Church in High Street, Regent is now used byMacedonian Baptists (Jupp, 1988:685, 690).A number of other Eastern Orthodox churches, including St Nikola in Tyler Street, Preston,Holy ChurchSt George in St David Street, Thornbury, which was the Greek Orthodox churchfor Northcote and environs (until the 1990s it was located in the former CongregationalChurch on the corner of Martin Street and Armadale Street) and, commenced in redundantchurches, while St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Gilbert Road also commenced in aredundant church before opening a new church complex in 1989. These churches show thetransition of Darebin from the stronghold of non-conformist Protestantism to a multiculturalcommunity.104