SR0162 94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0162 LRB094 12074 HSS 45266 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Senate of the State of Illinois learned with sadness of the death of Archbishop Iakovos, who transformed the Greek Orthodox Church in the Americas while championing religious unity and human rights, on Sunday, April 10, 2005; and

WHEREAS, He was born Demetrios Coucouzis in Turkey and took the name Iakovos, which means James, when he was ordained a deacon in 1934; he spoke several languages and could hold children as well as adults spellbound by his sermons; and

WHEREAS, Archbishop Iakovos headed the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, with an estimated 2 million followers, from 1959 until 1996; 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 pope, and spent nine years as a president of the World Council of Churches; and

WHEREAS, He marched with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 and received the Medal of Freedom from President Jimmy Carter in 1980; he was as strong proponent of ecumenism; and

WHEREAS, He was instrumental in setting up dialogues between Orthodox churches and Anglicans, Lutherans, Southern Baptists, and other denominations; he met every president from Dwight Eisenhower through Bill Clinton, and was one of the U.S. Christian leaders who met with Pope John Paul II in a historic gathering in South Carolina in 1987; and

WHEREAS, During his long tenure as archbishop, he led the 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; and

WHEREAS, Archbishop Iakovos started a youth movement in the United States and created the Ionian Village in Greece, a summer camp that has been visited by more than 16,000 Greek-American children; and

WHEREAS, 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; and

WHEREAS, Archbishop Iakovos is remembered as a superb archbishop who offered to the church an intense, continuous, multifaceted, and creative pastoral activity; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of Archbishop Iakovos, and we extend our deepest sympathy to his family, friends, and all who knew and loved him; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America as an expression of our sincerest condolences in the passing of a great leader.