Greek Orthodox Church in America: A Modern History

425 Pages·2020·3.373 MB·English

by  Alexander Kitroeff

THE GREEK ORTHODOX
CHURCH IN AMERICA
A Modern History
ALEXANDER KITROEFF
NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS
AN IMPRINT OF
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca and London
For Speros Vryonis (1928–2019)
Beloved teacher and friend

Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
A Note on Language and Transliteration
Introduction
1. Greek Orthodoxy Arrives in America
2. Americanization and the Immigrant Church in the
1920s
3. Greek Orthodoxy versus Protestant Congregationalism
4. The Greek Orthodox Church in between Greece and
America
5. Assimilation and Respectability in the 1950s
6. The Challenges of the 1960s
7. Greek Orthodoxy and the Ethnic Revival
8. Church and Homeland
9. Toward an American Greek Orthodoxy
10. The Challenges for an American Greek Orthodoxy
11. Church and Patriarchate and the Limits of
Americanization
12. Greek Orthodoxy in America Enters the Twenty-First
Century
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
This book owes its existence to a generous grant
from the Jaharis Family Foundation, which deserves the greatest
part of my gratitude. His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios granted
me access to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s archive, where
archivist Nikie Calles was an extremely helpful guide while also
sharing the extraordinary knowledge she acquired in her long service
first at the side of Archbishop Iakovos and later as archivist. Father
Robert Stephanopoulos generously shared his knowledge as well as
his extensive library with me. Anita Isaacs helped me plan the
project and deal with the logistics of doing research in New York City.
My thanks also go to Photini Tomai, director of the Historical Archive
of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and her staff; Andrea
Bainbridge, university archivist, DePaul University Special
Collections and Archives; Daniel Necas, archivist at the Immigration
History Research Center Archives, University of Minnesota; George
I. Paganellis, at the Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection at the California
State University, Sacramento; Rob Haley, interlibrary loans librarian
at Magill Library, Haverford College; and Art Dimopoulos, who gifted
me a part of the material collected by his father, the late Father
George Dimopoulos of St. Demetrios Church in Upper Darby,
Pennsylvania. The late Peter B. Christie granted me access to
material related to the early history of the Annunciation Church in
Philadelphia, which later moved to Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.
Numerous persons with direct experience of Greek Orthodoxy in
America’s recent history were kind enough to share their knowledge
in informal conversations, which provided valuable background
information. They are Simos Dimas, a New York–based attorney who
served on the Archdiocesan Council; Michael Jaharis, a long-
standing member of the Archdiocesan Council; Father Alex
Karloutsos, who worked closely with Archbishop Iakovos and later
with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew; Christine Lee Vicar at All
Angels’ Church in New York; Maria Makedon, former education
director at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese; the late Panayotis
Makrias, who had a long career in the Greek American press; Peter
Marudas, an official of the Orthodox Christian Laity Organization;
Fevronia Soumakis, whose doctoral dissertation completed at
Columbia University is on the archdiocese’s schools in New York;
and Rev. Robert Stephanopoulos, former dean of the Greek
Orthodox Cathedral of New York.
I made four public presentations based on my ongoing research
for this book, and I thank the organizers for their invitation and the
audiences for their valuable comments and questions. These were
the Annual Zamanakos Lecture at the University of Massachusetts in
Lowell; an invited lecture at the Hellenic Studies Program at the
State University of California in Sacramento; a conference in Athens
on the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Greek
dictatorship in 1967; and a paper at a conference in Oxford on
Greece’s relations with its diaspora. I published an article based on
my research about the 1970 Clergy-Laity Congress in the online
journal Ergon Greek American Arts and Letters, and I thank the
editor Yiorgos Anagnostou and two anonymous readers for their
comments that in turn helped me sharpen the relevant section in this
book.
My understanding of the interface between Greek America and its
church has also benefited from listening to or reading the insights of
very many friends and colleagues, too many to list here. I should
mention that film director Maria Iliou’s invitation to serve as historical
consultant in the documentary The Journey: The Greek Dream in
America helped me focus my long-standing awareness of the
importance of the church in the history of the Greek American
experience. The late and much missed Charles Moskos always
offered great encouragement and inspiration, including how to do on-
the-spot research when he bounded up the steps of a Greek
Orthodox Church in Astoria, New York, crying out “Kalispera” (good
evening) to a startled elderly cleric who was peacefully sitting on a
stool at the entrance. Finally, the late Speros Vryonis honored me by
praising the way I dealt with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of
Alexandria in my first book and from then on helped me embark on
an academic career. Fittingly, he was able to attend the presentation
based on this book I made in Sacramento and commented on the
significance of the church’s ecclesiastical and legal status in America
in understanding its history. I have approached this book by using
that particular status and the wider structural context of the
interactions between Greek America and Greek Orthodoxy to frame
the inquiry.
Books on Greek America are not best-sellers, maybe with the
exception of Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex, so I wish to express my
profound gratitude to acquisitions editor Amy Farranto and Orthodox
Christian series editor Roy Robson at the Northern Illinois University
Press for believing in the value and potential of this book. The two
outside readers the press selected both wished to remain
eponymous, so I am pleased to acknowledge the advice, comments,
and encouragement of Yiorgos Anagnostou of Ohio State University
and Theofanis Stavrou of the University of Minnesota. My thanks
also to everyone else at the Northern Illinois University Press and
Cornell University Press for helping to transform the manuscript into
book form.
Abbreviations
AHEPA American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association
E&D Encyclicals and Documents of the Greek Orthodox
GOARCH Archdiocese of America
GAPA Greek American Progressive Association
GMFA Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs
GOARCH Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
GOYA Greek Orthodox Youth of America
GWRA Greek War Relief Association
OCL Orthodox Christian Laity
Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in
SCOBA
the Americas