When Archbishop Iakovos Received News of the Murder of Martin Luther King

Archbishop Terrence and Archbishop Iakovos in 1968 at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

In New York City, the night of the murder in Memphis, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos was giving a reception in Orthodox headquarters for the newly-installed Roman Catholic Archbishop Terrence J. Cooke of New York, when word of the death of Dr. King was received. The two prelates went to the adjacent chapel and, kneeling side by side, led hierarchs representing several Orthodox jurisdictions in America, and newsmen, in reciting the Lord's Prayer.

An Orthodox View of Contemporary Economics, Politics, and Culture

In 1967, following two decades of progressively harsher persecution of religion under communist rule, Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha triumphantly declared his nation to be the first atheist state in history. Hoxha, inspired by China's Cultural revolution, proceeded to confiscate mosques, churches, monasteries, and shrines. Many were immediately razed, others turned into machine shops, warehouses, stables, and movie theaters. Parents were forbidden to give their children religious names. Anyone caught with bibles, icons, or religious objects faced long prison sentences. In the south, where the ethnic Greek population was concentrated, villages named after saints were given secular names. For the religious, a long nightmare of persecution and martyrdom was to follow.