documents · Letter ·1932-06-16 ·Astoria, New York

Greek Archdiocese — Bronx parish matter referred to Mixed Council

Greek Archdiocese — Bronx parish matter referred to Mixed Council — page 1 of 1
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Greek Archdiocese letter, June 16, 1932, addressed to:

“the Honorable Mister Kleanthis Zonaras, President of the Ecclesiastical Council of the Holy Church of Saints Constantine and Helen, Bronx, N.Y.

Two institutional facts of the Bronx parish thread are clarified for the first time here:

  1. The parish’s full canonical dedication is “Saints Constantine AND Helen” (Άγιοι Κωνσταντίνος και Ελένη) — Constantine the Great and his mother Helen, jointly venerated in Eastern Orthodox tradition as the discoverers of the True Cross (joint feast day May 21). Other documents use the shorter “Saint Constantine” form, but the dual dedication is canonical.

  2. The President of the parish Ecclesiastical Council in 1932 was Kleanthis Zonaras (Κλεάνθης Ζωναράς) — a name that resurfaces four months later as the first signatory on the October 1932 General Assembly minutes that organized the post-merger “United” parish entity.

The body of the letter informs the parish that “the matter of the Bronx Parish has been referred to the Mixed Council of the Archdiocese” and summons a six-member parish delegation under Zonaras’s presidency to attend the Mixed Council meeting at the Archdiocese on Saturday, June 18, 1932 at 8 PM “for consultation and understanding.” The Mixed Council was a senior canonical body — composed of clergy and lay members — that handled escalated parish disputes; the referral confirms the Bronx situation had moved past routine pastoral correspondence into a formal church-administrative process.