LOWELL, MA – The University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Hellenic Studies Program hosted Haverford College (PA) Professor Alexander Kitroeff last month, to speak about Archbishop Iakovos, whom Kitroeff deemed “the greatest figure in the history of Greek America,” the Lowell Sun reported.
The event was the annual Zamanakos Lecture, which was established in 2012 by Arthur Zamanakos in honor of his mother, Maria; his sister, Alexandria; and his wife, Alice, the Sun reported.
“I have come not to burnish his image nor to bring him down,” Prof. Kitroeff said of the late archbishop, describing Iakovos as charismatic, wrote the Sun, but with an “autocratic” style that ultimately may have contributed to his resignation in 1996.
Faced with “an American environment closing in,” Kitroeff explained, Iakovos battled to maintain the Church’s unmistakable Greek identity in a nation that perpetually strives to be a melting pot.
On the whole, Kitroeff, a history professor and former TNH columnist, spoke at length about Iakovos’ great accomplishments, not least of which is iconic 1965 March in Selma, AL with civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King.
“He was a great man with great vision, who made bold decisions,” Kitroeff said for Iakovos, even as some of those decisions did not work out for him.
AN AMBASSADOR
Kitroeff described Iakovos’ progressive thinking, insofar as introducing English to the liturgies, which many criticized as the Church losing its Greekness. He commissioned an investigation of the Church in 1984, to determine its state. The result: too hierarchical. The report also noted an emerging demand to connect more closely with other Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Iakovos responded, bringing together leaders of such churches, but again there was backlash that this might weaken ties to these institutions’ mother churches in Europe.
Iakovos’ push for “pan orthodoxy,” Kitroeff explained, the Sun reported, may have been what led to a confrontation with Patriarch Bartholomew, who, like Iakovos was a strong personality and a native of Imbros.
Iakovos was also committed to connecting with religious leaders from other faiths, as the Sun noted. Early in his tenure, he met with Pope John XXIII, in 1959, becoming the first Greek Orthodox archbishop to meet with a Roman Catholic pope in 350 years.
A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, given to him in 1980 by Jimmy Carter, Iakovos met with every U.S. president from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton.
Archbishop Iakovos passed away in 2005, at age 93.