Iakovos of America
Archbishop Iakovos or Jacob (Greek: Ιάκωβος; civil: Demetrios Koukouzis (Δημήτριος Κουκούζης), Imbros July 29, 1911 - April 10, 2005 ) was the primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America (today the Archdiocese of North and South America America) from 1959 until his retirement in 1996.
Life
Iakovos was born on the island of Imbros in the Ottoman Empire, which was then inhabited by Greek people. At the age of 15 he enrolled at the theological school in Chalki , and after graduating in 1934, adopted "Iakovos" as the church name.
Five years after his ordination, Deacon Iakovos received an invitation to work as Archdeacon with Archbishop Athenagoras , who later became Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. He was ordained a priest in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1940 . At the same time he graduated from Harvard University and earned a Master of Sacred Theology degree.
After the election of the Holy Synod of Constantinople on February 14, 1959, he took over the position of Archbishop of North and South America on April 1, 1959 as the successor to the late Archbishop Michael , at which time the metropolis of America already had over 500 parishes. One of his first meetings was the visit of Pope John XXIII. , which was the first meeting of a Pope with an Orthodox figure in 350 years. In the USA he tried to minimize the ethnic orientation of many congregations and to strengthen ecumenism. He initiated the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas , which he chaired.
Iakovos was also repeatedly active as a political mediator, the Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Özal visited him in 1985 to mediate in relations between Turkey and Greece. However, Iakovos himself did not have a good relationship with Greece's socialist prime minister Andreas Papandreou . Iakovos achieved a small rapprochement between the two countries on the Cyprus question and the Davos meeting. Both candidates of the 1980 presidential election campaign asked Iakovos for support, he agreed to both appear together, but on condition that neither of the two parties would be involved.
After the differences of opinion with the new Patriarch Bartholomäus I increased in the 1990s , he retired. He died on April 10, 2005.
Civil rights movement
Through his own experience of being persecuted as a Greek and Christian in Turkey, Archbishop Iakovos (as one of the few prominent non-blacks and the only one with a church background) became involved in the American civil rights movement and took part in the Selma-nach-Montgomery Marches part. This commitment is also shown in the film Selma .
The cover of Life magazine from March 26, 1965 shows Iakovos at the side of Martin Luther King .
Iakovos motivated the members of his church to be actively involved in the civil rights movement and not just to be "spectators and listeners". For this commitment he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alexander Kitroeff: The Greek Orthodox Church in America: A Modern History. 2020, p. 116.
- ^ George Thomas Kurian, Mark A. Lamport: Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States , Volume 5, p. 1187.
- ^ Morton Abramowitz: The United States and Turkey: Allies in Need . P. 113.
- ↑ Alexander Kitroeff: The Greek Orthodox Church in America: A Modern History. 2020, p. 178.