St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church (Chicago)

St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church is a parish in Chicago's Northwest Side, at 2701 N. Narragansett Avenue. Twelve Albanian men, immigrants from the area around Korçë in southeastern Albania, founded the church in 1944 to serve the spiritual needs of the local Albanian Orthodox community. The congregation purchased a former Danish Evangelical Lutheran church building in 1947, and the current church building was constructed in 1961.

Sunday worship follows the standard Orthodox pattern of Orthros followed by Divine Liturgy, with a fellowship and coffee hour afterward in the parish hall. Services are also live-streamed on the parish Facebook page. The priest, Fr. Ignatius, offers home and business blessings by appointment.

The parish is widely known beyond Chicago for the Weeping Icon of the Theotokos, painted by Byzantine iconographer Constantine Youssis. The icon began to weep on December 6, 1986, the feast of St. Nicholas, with the phenomenon reported again in 1988 and 1995. The church is now a Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the parish reports that more than two million people have come to view the icon since 1986.

The church remains tied to the wider Albanian-American community in Greater Chicago, with connections to groups such as the Albanian-American Women's Association of Greater Chicago. It also hosts ecclesial events of regional significance: on December 5, 2024, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Metropolis of Chicago attended Great Hierarchical Vespers for the Feast of St. Nicholas at the parish.