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NEW YORK — Judge John Iliou spends his working days with families at their breaking point. His Suffolk County caseload includes allegations of child abuse and neglect, along with cases involving domestic violence. So when His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America asked him how anyone does that work, the judge responded: “I get strength from my family. My wife is phenomenal. Athena is the best,” Iliou said. “And, then my faith helps me.”
Iliou, a Suffolk County Court judge and a candidate for the New York State Supreme Court, came to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s headquarters on East 79th Street in Manhattan last week to ask for the Archbishop’s blessing. With him were his wife, Athena Iliou; his father, Tom Iliou; and the Fr. Elias Pappas, presiding priest of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in West Babylon, the family’s parish on Long Island.
The judge was precise about the difference between what decides his cases and what keeps him going. “I’m guided by the law, by precedent,” he said. “We all have our own personal opinions, but I put them aside when I go into the law.” Iliou presides over the Integrated Domestic Violence Part in Suffolk County, where he also serves as an acting state Supreme Court justice. New York began building these courts in 2001 around an idea summed up as “one family, one judge.” When domestic violence lies beneath a family’s legal troubles, a single judge hears its related criminal, family and divorce cases, so the family does not shuttle among courthouses or receive conflicting orders from different judges. He has been part of that court almost from its start. Suffolk’s integrated court opened in October 2002 as one of the state’s first six, and Iliou was its principal law clerk from 2003 to 2006.
After graduating from Hofstra University and Albany Law School, he became an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County in 1994. He later worked as an assistant town attorney in Brookhaven, as a court attorney in Suffolk’s Family Court and as a principal law clerk in County Court. He became a Suffolk County District Court judge in 2006 and has served on the County Court since 2013. Off the bench, he is a former trustee of the West Babylon school board and has served as an officer of AHEPA, the Greek American fraternal organization.
“We are proud of you,” Archbishop Elpidophoros told the judge. “The church is your family. The Archdiocese is your family.”
He was just as plain about where the church stands in an election season. “The church is not partisan. We do not support one specific political party,” he said, explaining that the church is there for its people αnd want them to succeed when they serve in a public office.
Athena Iliou’s family comes from Kastoria, in the country’s north, and told His Eminence that she spent her childhood summers there. “Some of the most beautiful Byzantine churches in northern Greece are in Kastoria,” the Archbishop remarked.
Tom Iliou helped build the family’s parish. St. Nicholas once worshipped in a small church in the Babylon area, the judge said, until a priest of that era brought parishioners together to build the church the community uses today. His father was among those who did the work. The elder Iliou recalled needing great quantities of fill to prepare the grounds and calling a friend for help. Truck after truck arrived. When he asked what the parish owed, he was told the church would not be charged. He and others also laid the parish’s sidewalks and parking lot.
A new generation serves at its altar now. Fr. Elias Pappas, whom Archbishop Elpidophoros ordained to the priesthood in 2022, became presiding priest of St. Nicholas in June 2025.
“You see, it takes generations to build the body of Christ, the church,” the Archbishop said. “So many people worked so hard and we inherited all these beautiful things and we need to be worthy of having them and expanding them and growing them.”
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