My Beloved Brothers and in Christ,
It is with great sadness to hear the news of the falling asleep in the Lord of His Eminence Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago on Friday, June 2, 2017. The passing of our beloved Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago is a very sad event for me personally, and of course for all of the people that he met in his life.
I met him in 1974 when I came from Greece. He was serving as the president of the Hellenic College-Holy Cross, our beloved school. He was the one that welcomed me and tried to help and assist my life here in the United States. He gave me so much love and encouragement during my first years in this country and that is how I remember His Eminence—from those days.
Later on, as a bishop myself and brother of his, I had the blessing of constantly working by his side with love and understanding. Many times, I admired him for the courage he had to speak his mind for the important matters of our Church and for the difficult decisions we had to make in the Holy Synod. He was a person, of course, with dedication. I cannot remember a time when he didn’t appear or didn’t participate in a session of the Holy Synod or any other matter of our Holy Archdiocese. He was many times the first one to arrive and participated in such a way that he always brought understanding, to help us make positive and impactful decisions.
Now that he has departed this life, I feel that we will all very deeply miss an individual who really loved our church; that had dedication for his work, for his episcopacy, for his leadership, and for whatever he did as a hierarch and the Metropolitan of Chicago. We will miss an individual that had love and understanding in his heart, even for the people that thought differently than him. We will miss a person who tried to keep the Orthodox order, style and life in this country.
I would like to express my deepest sympathy to all the clergyman of the Metropolis of Chicago and to the faithful with whom he worked and for whom he gave his entire life.
With this I close by saying αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη, memory be eternal.
With love in Christ,
+ALEXIOS
Metropolitan of Atlanta