St. George Orthodox Church in Bridgeville will host a celebration weekend for the groundbreaking of its new church and hall starting at 10 a.m. Saturday next to the church cemetery on Washington Pike in South Fayette.

The events will begin in the church hall with a school family fellowship with Metropolitan Philip (Saliba), leader of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North American, and Bishop Thomas (Joseph).

The official ground breaking ceremony is at 11:30 a.m. at the Washington Pike site.

At 6 p.m. Saturday will be great vespers at St. George Church on Dewey Avenue.

On Sunday at 9:30 a.m., there will be a Matins service followed at 10:30 a.m. by a Hierachical Divine Liturgy, both at the current church.

A coffee hour follows at 11:30 a.m. in the church hall.

The ground breaking celebration banquet is 6:30 p.m. Sunday at the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott Hotel.

Construction of the new facilities is expected to be completed by late 2011, said the Rev. Jason DelVitto, pastor.

The general contractor is Baker Construction from Uniontown. The design will be "traditional Orthodox architecture," Father DelVitto said.

The church was started in 1920 by a small group of men who migrated from Syria. They bought a former blacksmith shop at the corner of Baldwin Street and McLaughlin Run Road in Bridgeville.

The current church on Dewey Avenue seats 140 people.

"We're very confined" there, said Richard Ferris of South Fayette, a longtime parish member and building chairman. "It's a residential neighborhood and parking is difficult."

The new church will seat 200 "and we have room to stretch out if we need to," Mr. Ferris said, because the church owns 14 acres. Half of that is dedicated to the cemetery and the other half to the new facility and plenty of parking.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.