As the longtime head of the Midwest Greek Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Iakovos was remembered by church leaders this week as a faithful steward and stable force who was attentive to the needs of church members.
Iakovos, 89, born Michael Garmatis in Athens, Greece, died Friday. His funeral is Friday in Chicago.
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As a bishop in the Chicago Archdiocese since 1979, he provided stability and a consistency for priests and parishioners, church officials said.
“It’s an amazing legacy, because people today do not last in positions like that for so long,” said the Rev. Christopher T. Metropulos, president of the Hellenic College in Boston.
“Very few can (be in) the continuous position of integrity that brings stability not only to the church but to the lives of the people,” Metropulos said.
“He was a priest’s priest,” he said. “He was a bishop’s bishop.”
Church leaders said Iakovos still was active in ministry when he died after an unexpected illness and surgery at a Chicago hospital. He oversaw 34 parishes in Illinois and two dozen others in northern Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, eastern Missouri and Wisconsin.
The Rev. Jim Greanias of St. Iakovos Greek Orthodox Church in Valparaiso said the Metropolitan partly inspired him to become a priest.
When his father — also a Greek Orthodox priest — died unexpectedly, Iakovos visited the family and personally conducted his 40th-day memorial — an essential spiritual milestone that Orthodox Christians believe marks the soul’s journey into the afterlife.
“At 21 … my world was upside down,” Greanias said. “When (he) came, it was such a sign. It really felt like the presence of Christ.”
The Rev. Ted Poteres of St. Constantine & Helen Cathedral in Merrillville said Iakovos was strict on how priests should conduct liturgy but would never embarrass a priest in the teaching process.
Iakovos was a kind man with whom he could share a joke, Poteres said. He was attentive to parishioners and often would ask them about their families over the several times he visited the church.
His influence on his own family was vast, Poteres said. Iakovos ordained him, married him, baptized his children and eventually married them.
Iakovos served in the Greek Orthodox Church for nearly 50 years and was the first metropolitan of Chicago. He was born in 1928 and served in the church there until 1954 when he went to Boston for graduate studies.
Archbishop Demetrios of America will preside at Iakovos’ funeral at 10:30a.m. Friday at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary in Chicago.
Associated Press contributed.
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