Stamford, USA - 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."
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.