Rev. Father Constantine Eliades

Rev. Father Constantine Eliades, age 92, of Palm Harbor fell asleep in the Lord unexpectedly in his home after worshipping in Church and venerating the Holy Cross the day before.
Rev. Father Constantine Eliades, the first of three children of Dionysios and Kyriaki (nee Theodorou) who emigrated from Asia Minor, was born in New York City on May 10, 1933. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and attended CCNY majoring in statistics. He was educated at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological school (B.A.Th.), Princeton Seminary (Th.M.) where under Dr. Samuel Blizzard, he wrote his thesis "The Assimilation of the Greek Orthodox Church into American Society." He was ordained Deacon by His Eminence Athenagoras Kavadas on Graduation Day June 2, 1957, and Presbyter by Bishop Germanos of Konstantia on June 27, 1957. He is the founding priest of St. Paraskevi in Greenlawn, New York (1957 to 1964) which he nurtured from 64 families to 450. He was instrumental in purchasing the five-and-a-half-acre site, creating the architectural Byzantine plans and raising $125,000 for construction of the current church. IN 1964 he was appointed by His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos to organize the newly created Department of Research and Statistics. While there he published the monumental 1965 and 1966 Archdiocese Yearbooks which contained all the vital statistics of every Greek Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada. No such statistics have since been published. For his work he was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of American Religious Statisticians. In addition, he was instrumental for the microfilming of the of the Registry Archives at the Archdiocese and creating the current applications and certificates of Marriage and Baptism. In the course of his 55 years as a priest he served as Pastor of St. Paraskevi in Greenlawn, New York from June 1959 to September 1968, then at Sts. Constantine and Helen, Brooklyn, New York from 1968 to 1973 where he, in 1971, also became the Principal of the A. Fantis Parochial School which had 310 students in Grades K-8; then as Pastor of Holy Trinity in Bridgeport, CT from 1973 to 1983 where he was responsible for the elimination of a $300,00 mortgage and the painting of the 24 murals that adorn the church which culminated in the Consecration of the Church in 1978; then as Pastor of Holy Cross, Whitestone, New York form 1983 to 1994. Fr. Eliades was asked to return to the Archdiocese by His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos from 1994 to 1997 to be the first Director of the Archdiocese Pension Benefits Office which he was instrumental in establishing in 1973, the Committee Chairmanship of which Fr. Eliades held for 12 years. After retiring in 1997 he continued to be active serving many parishes for months and years at a time, one of which was Sts. George and Demetrios in New York where he served from 2004 to 2012. Among his accomplishments were 37 years as V.A. Chaplain at Northport and Montrose Hospitals; a diplomat in family therapy form Elmhurst Psychiatric Hospital in Portland, CT; President for 5 years of the Greater Bridgeport Council of Orthodox Churches; 22 years serving on the camp staff at Ionian Village in Vartholomio, Greece; 7 pilgrimages to the Holy Lands and the Patriarchate; 6 years as the Eastern Orthodox staff Chaplain at St. Vincent's Hospital in Bridgeport, CT; his service as Secretary of the Archdiocese Presbyter's Council from 1970 to 1974; his 12 years as President of the Archdiocese Spiritual Court from 1962 to 1974; his establishment of a Boy Scout Troop at each of the three churches he served as Pastor; and lastly as a Board Member of the Retired Clergy Association from 2004 to 2018 and as Secretary from 2006 to 2016.
For his dedication to our Holy Greek Orthodox Church, His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos bestowed upon Fr. Constantine Eliades the rank of Economos in 1971 and Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1978.
In June of 1957, Fr. Constantine married his childhood sweetheart, Kanela Poulis of New York City at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. They were blessed with three children, Daniel, Calliope (Victor) Viviani, and Presvytera Joanne (Fr. Constantine) Aliferakis, ten grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by Presvytera Kanela in 2005 after 48 years of marriage.
In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Fr. Constantine Eliades may be made to St. John Chrysostomos Monastery, Pleasant Prairie, WI or St. John the Forerunner Monastery, Goldendale, WA.