Death of Another Religious Leader: Humanity’s Archbishop

Published by The National Herald, April 21, 2005

The death of Pope John Paul II, the "People’s Pope," on April 2 was followed a little more than a week later by the death of Archbishop Iakovos, who headed the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North & South America, with an estimated two million followers, from 1959 until his retirement in 1996. He died in a hospital in Stamford, Connecticut on April 10 at the age of 93.

There isn’t any need to assess his life and mission beside the life and mission of John Paul, or to overlook the stark truth that, in the end, the bones and ashes of all humans, whether beggars or kings, weigh the same. Both these religious leaders were extraordinary human beings whose long lives reflected credit on their churches, their flocks, and on their striving to improve the human condition.

While the funeral services for Archbishop Iakovos in New York on April 14 were attended by many people from across the United States, and the eulogies spoken about him sought to honor his life, the television and print coverage was much less extensive than the worldwide coverage afforded the late Pope. Millions who watched the Pontiff’s funeral will not even be aware of the passing of Archbishop Iakovos.

Yet, as someone who knew and admired the late Archbishop for the last 50 years, I think a few words might be added to his obituary so that people who would otherwise not note his passing might be made aware of who he was and what he accomplished.

He was an incredibly charismatic man, tall in stature, with an imposing presence, whether in church, in his vestments, or while walking through a hotel lobby or an airport, clad in his dark robes and high dark archbishop’s hat. He had a resonant voice, which could alter in tone from a vein of iron when he was displeased to one of warmth and affection when something had pleased and moved him. I witnessed him manifest both these emotions (once when I heard him sternly berate a pompous Greek layman for waffling on some issue of principle). I also saw him respond to the singing of a choir of young Greek American boys. When he thanked them, recalling the dreams of his own boyhood, there were tears in his eyes, and his voice was husky with emotion.

In his ecumenical activities, he spoke with conviction of what he felt to be right. Striving to promote a dialogue between faiths, he met with Pope John XXIII after his 1959 enthronement, becoming the first Greek Orthodox archbishop to meet with a Roman Catholic pope in 350 years.

In one of the most controversial actions of his extensive tenure, long before tolerance and support for the civil rights struggle became fashionable, he marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama in 1965. A photograph of the two leaders, standing side by side, appeared on the cover of LIFE Magazine. Afterwards, the Archbishop was battered with hate mail, which included letters from members of his own Orthodox congregations condemning him for exposing the church to criticism.

Yet he continued to stress the importance of dialogue between churches of all denominations, between peoples of all races and all faiths, and in 1980, he received the Medal of Freedom from President Jimmy Carter. He was also one of the Christian leaders who met with Pope John Paul II in a momentous assembly in South Carolina in 1987.

Many others worked more closely with him and knew him better than I did through his decades of service, during which he also sought to involve young people more actively in the church. These efforts included the introducing of English into the Greek Sunday liturgy and creating the Ionian Village in Greece, a summer camp visited through the years by many hundreds of Greek American children. But in our occasional meetings, he displayed an affection for me, mostly, I believe, because I was the son of a pioneer Greek Orthodox priest. As a young priest, he had known my father and mother, and he understood the hardships priests and their families of that early period of Greek immigration to the United States endured.

A number of times during his tenure, he invited me as a speaker to Clergy-Laity Congresses, as well as to join with other writers and professors in the annual celebration of Greek Letters. Once, I had made a previous commitment and sent my apologies about my inability to be present through an official from the Archdiocese. A day later, my phone rang. It was His Eminence, the Archbishop himself. In his soft but unyielding voice, he spoke quietly, using my name in Greek, "Haralambe, I want you here with us." I had neither the desire nor the courage to refuse him, and I called and canceled the prior engagement.

Our meetings in the crowded environs of these conferences were always fleeting, but each time, I gratefully carried away a memory of his warmth and his good wishes for me in my life and my work.

There is a laconic saying in our church, referring to the son of a priest as being a "stepson of the devil." I have heard that pejorative assessment since my childhood in my father’s parish and could never be sure whether it hadn’t established a designation I aspired to earn in my wayward youth. At one of the Clergy-Laity Congresses, when the speaker introducing me for a talk before an audience of young people made a teasing reference to that dubious appellation, the Archbishop rose swiftly from his seat on the dais to take the microphone from the speaker’s hand. In a stern voice, he said he irrevocably rejected that description. He told the audience that the "son of a priest is a stepson of an angel." Whether hyperbole or not, I have always been grateful to him for that defense of the sons of parish priests.

For all his international honors, a parish priest was what Archbishop Iakovos always felt himself to be. The position in the Greek Orthodox Church he had achieved was more exalted, his honors more recognized than that of ordinary priests. But he remained an enlightened parish priest at heart, concerned not only for the wellbeing of his own flock, but recognizing also the responsibilities we have toward our brothers and sisters of different races and different faiths.

If Pope John Paul II was the "People’s Pope," than it would be equally tenable to grant Archbishop Iakovos a title as "Humanity’s Archbishop." The whole of his life reflected his mission to promote understanding, to foster peace among peoples, and amity among all religions.

There is an old blessing in the Greek Orthodox Church, offered for those deceased. "Aionia tou I mnimi." Translated, the words mean, "May his memory be Eternal."

In the chronicles of history, through the rise and fall of civilizations where, in the words of a Persian poet, "Spiders spin their webs in the palaces of Caesars‚" it would be presumptuous to assume that even the worthiest of men will be remembered forever.

But for those of us privileged to have known Archbishop Iakovos, and to have carried away his blessings, and for those who may not have known him but who benefited by his courageous stand for peace, tolerance for human diversity, and for the affirmation of that profound bond which humans call love, he will always be remembered as, "Humanity’s Archbishop."



Volume 7 Number 17 - Tuesday, April 26th, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY