St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church Athena started in the year 1978 as a church group. The group was attending masses at St. Patrick Catholic Church. On 20/10/1991Rev Fr.in charge Joseph Mukui of St. Patrick Catholic Church, authorized for the first mass to be held at Athena, which was celebrated by the late Rev Fr. Samuel Ng’ang’a. In the year 1993 the church group was named after St. Francis of Assisi. In the same year 1993, the first harambee was held in St. Patrick Church to raise funds for purchasing church plot. The harambee was presided over by Rev.Fr. Joseph Mukui, the guest of honour was the late George Thuo and Ksh 148,000/= was raised. Out of 148,000/=, Ksh 62,000 was used to purchase the first plot allocated near Athena primary school in the year 1993.

In 1995, Christians from St. Francis Small Christian Community requested for blessings of their homes. The request was accepted and Rev.Fr. Gitau wa Maria conducted the activity. Rev.Fr. Gitau wa Maria asked Christians to divide St. Francis of Assisi small Christian community into two. The first meeting was to discuss on how to divide the group was held at the late Jacob Njoroge’s home and agreed to have St. Clare and St. Anthony.

SCC respectively, this was in1996.on19/11/1999 a major harambee was carried out and Ksh 650,000/= was raised and the current church was constructed.