St Clement's Melkite Catholic Church & Presbytery

In Brisbane, the Lebanese Melkite Catholic community was anxious to maintain their native language and customs in their own church. The campaign to raise funds for a Melkite Rite church in Brisbane was led by the very reverend Archimandrite (Monsignor) Sophronus Khoury who had been sent to Sydney from Beirut in 1908. In 1928 he received the permission of the Holy See of Beirut to establish a Melkite Rite church in Brisbane and to minister to the city's Lebanese migrants. 

Initially Father Khoury held mass for his small Lebanese congregation at St Mary's Catholic Church, South Brisbane. He initiated a fund raising campaign among the Lebanese community and formed a committee which by 1929 had raised enough money to purchase the land on which the church was later built. The land already contained a small timber house.

The house was probably built around 1918 as a rental property by Amy Perry and her husband Stephen Dudley. The Perry family had owned the 36 perch block of land since it was first sold as a Town Lot in September 1859.

The foundation stone for the new church was laid and blessed by Archbishop James Duhig, Bishop Malouf (who was visiting from Lebanon) and Father Khoury on 7 March 1929. However the campaign to raise more funds for the construction of the church itself suffered a major setback with the onset of the 1930s Depression. Despite this, the small but devoted group of Lebanese migrants continued to raise money until finally in 1936 sufficient funds had been collected to allow the church to open for worship. It was furnished by donations from Lebanese families.

Soon after the church had been completed the adjoining weatherboard house was modernised in brick to match the church and used for a presbytery which became the centre of all social gatherings.

The South Brisbane area housed many of Brisbane's migrants earlier this century, as it continues to do today. The availability of cheap housing and its proximity to public transport and employment in local industries attracted new arrivals to the closely settled area. Successive generations of migrants in the district have left a legacy of buildings reflecting their cultural diversity. Today the area boasts places of worship built or converted for use by the Greek, Serbian, Lebanese, Russian and Islamic communities in addition to a number of Irish/Anglo churches.

St Clement’s continues to play an important role in the lives of Brisbane's Lebanese community. It remains a place of worship and fellowship and helps to maintain traditional customs and language.

Church

The church is a modest, one-storey building in a decorative Interwar Romanesque style. It has facebrick walls and a gable roof clad with terracotta tiles. The symmetrical rectangular building is enlivened by a decorative gable end western front that features a variety of high-quality decorative dichromatic brickwork. 

Reached by a wide, branching front stair, the front entry into the church is a central arch-headed door in a stepped arch opening, implying greater depth in the front facade than in reality. To each side of the doorway are tall, narrow round-arch headed windows and stepped corner buttresses extend above the parapet with semi-circular tops. The gable apex is crowned with a cross. The Merivale Street side of the church is articulated into bays divided by buttresses and most bays feature round-arch headed leadlight windows. At the east end (rear) of the church is a small concave apsidal projection. The church’s openings are emphasised with darker brick.

Presbytery

The presbytery stands beside the church and also faces Ernest Street. It is a one-storey, highset timber residence with a hipped roof and projecting front room gable. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheets and the exterior walls are clad with a skin of facebrick. The front room projection is also crowned by a cross. The windows are timber framed casements.   

1. Brisbane City Council Heritage Unit, 'Historical Context Report', 1993 South Brisbane Area Heritage Study, Part A: Project Report

2. Malouf, Alexies, 1979 St Clement's Church, South Brisbane Queensland, 1929-1979: the Golden Jubilee, Brisbane: Leader Press

3. McKay, J. and T. Batrouney, 1988 "Lebanese" in James Jupp (Ed), The Australian People: an encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins, North Ryde, NSW: Angus and Robertson