Former Archbishop Iakovos of North and South America
Eternal Rest Grant unto him, Lord!
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Posted on 04/11/2005 6:54:07 AM PDT by Borges
Archbishop Iakovos, who led the Greek Orthodox Church in the Americas for 37 years, reaching out to other religious groups as a champion of ecumenism, has died. He was 93.
Iakovos died Sunday at Stamford Hospital from a pulmonary ailment, according to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.
The Turkish-born Iakovos _ pronounced YAWK-oh-vose _ headed the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, with an estimated 2 million followers, from 1959 until 1996. He was apparently forced out over his support for the idea of uniting the various Eastern Orthodox branches in a single American church.
He met with Pope John XXIII after his 1959 enthronement, becoming the first Greek Orthodox archbishop in 350 years to meet with a Roman Catholic prelate, and spent nine years as a president of the World Council of Churches.
Iakovos marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., in 1965 and received the Medal of Freedom from President Carter in 1980.
"Ecumenism," he said in 1960, "is the hope for international understanding, for humanitarian allegiance, for true peace based on justice and dignity, and for God's continued presence and involvement in modern history." ADVERTISEMENT
During his long tenure as archbishop, Iakovos led the U.S. Greek Orthodox church out of immigrant isolation and into the mainstream of American religious life, playing a leading role in bringing English into the liturgy.
When Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, a Greek-American, ran for president in 1988, Iakovos called the United States "a country resplendent with successful Greek Orthodox believers and citizens."
Iakovos was instrumental in setting up dialogues between Orthodox churches and Anglicans, Lutherans, Southern Baptists and other denominations. He opposed the Vietnam War, supported Soviet Jews and sought to aid the cause of Middle East peace.
He met every U.S. president from Dwight Eisenhower through Bill Clinton.
In September 1987, he took part when U.S. Christian leaders of many denominations met with Pope John Paul II in South Carolina. Iakovos said the meeting "may very well serve as a milestone in modern efforts by Christians to seek reconciliation and the attainment of full and lasting unity in Jesus Christ."
He sought to maintain Orthodox traditions such as opposing the ordination of women, while at the same time championing human rights and improved race relations.
Iakovos came into conflict with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the titular leader of world Orthodoxy, in 1994 after he convened a meeting of 29 bishops from the 10 North American branches of Eastern Orthodoxy.
In an unprecedented move, the bishops recommended placing all of the churches under one administrative umbrella while maintaining ties to their separate "mother churches" in Greece, Russia and the other countries.
It is widely assumed that Bartholomew forced Iakovos to resign in 1996 because he had endorsed the idea.
Bartholomew then appointed Archbishop Spyridon, who was deemed too imperious and was forced to resign in 1999. Spyridon was replaced by the current archbishop, Demetrios.
In a statement, Demetrios hailed Iakovos as "a superb archbishop who offered to the church an intense, continuous, multifaceted and creative pastoral activity."
Iakovos was born Demetrios Coucouzis in 1911 on the island of Imvros, Turkey. He earned a master's degree at the Ecumenical Patriarch's Theological School in Istanbul in 1934.
Arriving in the United States in 1939, he was ordained to the priesthood in Lowell, Mass., in 1940 and earned a second master's degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1945. He became a U.S. citizen in 1950.
Iakovos is survived by a niece, Maria Daoussi, of Montreal, and relatives in Greece.
He was a good man. May God embrace him.
An Orthodox ping.
Prayers. Now I wonder if the Vatican will have a prayer service in his honor and if the (reactionary strain of) outraged catholics who were looking for any excuse to slam the Orthodox for not giving honor's to John Paul, will be outraged by a lack of initiative from the Vatican?
+Memory Eternal+
He was a dear friend of my grandparents from long before he was Archbishop. My grandmother used to tell stories about teaching him to cook green beans in her kitchen. I remember the first time I met him. I was about 11 or 12 and he came to see my grandfather who was dying at the time. As I kid I felt almost like I was meeting God! :) We practiced what to do when he arrived for a week. My two youngest sisters were very little at the time. The Archbishop was sitting on a couch in my grandparent's living room and said "As Christ said, suffer the little children to come unto me!" With that he opened his arms and my two little sisters leapt into them and began to hug and kiss him. If I live to be 100, I'll never forget the serene smile on his face when they did that.
God Bless him! May his memory be eternal!
Eternal Rest Grant unto him, Lord!
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He was a visionary, like JPII, and a true man of God.
Eternal rest to this man, who became the face of the Greek Orthodox to me as I was growing up. Hard to imagine him not with us.
he was a good man, i have the pleasure of talking with him on a few occasions.
http://www.goarch.org/ has the full story and a video release.
BTW to those who did not realize, he has attended Republican conventions. (might have seen him on TV next to candidates)
Two weeks before Greek Orthodox Easter...
Prayers...God bless this man.
Thanks for posting this cover. I was looking for it.
We've had three deaths in three weeks in my family, another will happen in the next few days, I suspect, then the good old Pope and now this. This is a hard Great Lent!
Huh? I never heard any outrage toward the Orthodox last week. Maybe I didn't watch enough TV. What I saw at the Pope's funeral were the Patriarchs and representatives of several Eastern Rite sects giving a Blessing just after Holy Communion. It was beautiful and very moving.
Not TV, the threads here on FR.
Well, there are some nattering nabobs here who certainly DON'T represent most Catholics, or even the Church itself, regardless of their protestations to the contrary.
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