THREE-YEAR MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR ARCHBISHOP IAKOVOS ON APRIL 13 AT ANNUNCIATION CATHEDRAL OF BOSTON

     Metropolitan Methodios announced that on Sunday, April 13 there will be a hierarchical co-celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great at the Annunciation Cathedral of Boston. Following the Liturgy, a three-year memorial service will be offered for Archbishop Iakovos who passed away on April 10, 2005, bringing to an end a significant chapter in the history of Orthodoxy in America and the western hemisphere.
     Archbishop Iakovos served as the spiritual leader of Greek Orthodox Christians in the Western Hemisphere from 1959-1996. Born Demetrios Coucouzis on the Island of Imvros, Turkey on July 29, 1911, he enrolled at age 15 in the Ecumenical Patriarchal Theological School at Halki. After graduating with high honors, he was ordained Deacon in 1934, taking the ecclesiastical name Iakovos. Five years after his ordination, Deacon Iakovos received an invitation to serve as Archdeacon to the late Archbishop Athenagoras, the Primate of North and South America, who later (1949-72) became Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1940 in Lowell, MA, and served at St. George Church, Hartford, CT, while teaching and serving as assistant dean of the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School, then in Pomfret, CT. In 1941, he was named Preacher at Holy Trinity Cathedral in New York City and in the summer of 1942 served as temporary Dean of St. Nicholas Church in St. Louis, MO. He was appointed Dean of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Boston in 1942 and remained there until 1954. In 1954, he was ordained Bishop of Melita, by his spiritual father and mentor, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, for whom he served four years as personal representative of the Patriarchate to the World Council of Churches in Geneva. On February 14, 1959, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected Iakovos as successor to Archbishop Michael.
     A memorial reception will be hosted by the Cathedral Community following the services.