The
Daily Gyro
Updated
Daily on
Greek Time
April 13, 2005
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Sad news for the Greek Orthodox community as Archbishop Iakovos, former head of
the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America passed last weekend at the
age of 93. During his 37-year reign, he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King at
Selma in 1963, met with every U.S. president from Eisenhower through Clinton,
and was awarded the Medal of Freedom from Jimmy Carter in 1980. On the
religious front he was instrumental in incorporating English into the liturgy,
sought to unite the Orthodox churches in America, and opened dialogues with a
variety of churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. He notably
participated in a 1987 meeting of U.S. Christian leaders with Pope John Paul II
in South Carolina. Iakovos will lie in state at the Archdiocesan Cathedral of
the Holy Trinity in New York City today and his funeral will be Thursday
morning. Interment will be Friday morning on the Holy Cross Chapel grounds in
Brookline, Massachusetts.
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Last week’s funeral for the passing of Pope John Paul II featured many Greek
Orthodox leaders, but more surprising to many Greek and Greek-American viewers
was the amount of Greek in the service and the overall similarity of the
Catholic service to a traditional Orthodox service. We received an email from
one viewer who did a double-take thinking she was watching Antenna Satellite.
Perhaps The Mom @ DCGreeks.com
put it best when she called later in the day to mention that after watching the
service, she couldn’t understand what the difference was between Catholics and
Orthodox, because besides the left-right vs. right-left in making the sign of
the cross, she couldn’t see much of a difference. It’s moments like these that
make the line in every Sunday service where we pray for the unity of the faith
seem that much more poignant.
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In more sad news, a report released by Eurostat earlier this week predicts that
Greece will be inhabited by more pappoudes and yiayiades in 20
years, and by 2050, there will be 400,000 less Greeks in Greece than there are
today. To put that into perspective, imagine Greece losing the equivalent of
almost the Greek population of the city of Chicago in the next 45 years. What’s
worse is that in 2050, Greece will have the fourth-lowest percentage of the
population of working age adults in the EU with just over 55 percent. It will
be interesting to see if Greeks will be working more to pick up the slack or if
Greece will be even less productive than it is now. Either result would be sad.
Other Servings of The Daily Gyro
06/30/2010
08/31/2009
08/03/2009
03/25/2009
08/28/2008
08/27/2008
08/13/2008
04/02/2008
03/25/2008
08/30/2007
08/14/2007
03/05/2007
02/14/2007
01/22/2007
11/06/2006
10/02/2006
09/18/2006
09/04/2006
09/01/2006
08/14/2006
07/13/2006
07/10/2006
06/25/2006
06/05/2006
05/03/2006
04/04/2006
03/22/2006
02/21/2006
01/30/2006
01/17/2006
01/11/2006
01/09/2006
01/05/2006
01/04/2006
12/12/2005
11/28/2005
11/16/2005
10/31/2005
10/17/2005
10/03/2005
09/12/2005
09/02/2005
08/29/2005
08/10/2005
07/27/2005
07/13/2005
07/06/2005
06/27/2005
06/13/2005
05/23/2005
05/16/2005
05/06/2005
05/02/2005
04/25/2005
04/18/2005
04/13/2005
04/08/2005
04/06/2005
04/04/2005
04/01/2005
03/30/2005
03/28/2005
03/25/2005
03/23/2005
Read
past feature articles.
