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As the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, we at Leadership 100, advancing Orthodoxy and Hellenism in America, pay proper tribute and express profound gratitude for this historic and successful experiment of a democratic constitutional republic, founded in individual liberty, economic opportunity, religious freedom, and equal justice under the law unlike any other nation that has ever existed.
Our American founding fathers reached for Greek words before they ever met a Greek Orthodox parish: politics, democracy, aristocracy, tyranny: the lexicon of self-government was borrowed from Athens centuries before Ellis Island ever opened its gates. Classical Greece eventually gave way to immigrant Greeks, beginning in the mid-1700s and growing rapidly in numbers in the 1800s and early 1900s, steeped in faith, family, education, and hard work as the pathway to a new and better life than the impoverishment of their homeland in those challenging times.
The first Greek Orthodox Church in the United States was established in New Orleans in 1864. Since then, Greek Orthodox immigrants have built parishes across the country. Beyond serving for the liturgical worship of the Divine Liturgy, these parishes provided Greek-language schools, community associations, and cultural connections to life and family back in distant Greece, more than 5,000 miles away.
Religious liberty in America provided the foundation for these early Greek Orthodox communities to thrive. Orthodoxy’s sacramental theology, liturgical traditions, and vast calendar of fasts and feasts found fertile soil in community after community, and in state after state. The durable bonds of faith and family, coupled with the educational and economic opportunities abounding in America, provided the platform for extraordinary professional success in the private sector, the arts, and in government for generation after generation of Greek Americans.
By 1922, the establishment of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America provided institutional strength and a structural ballast to what had earlier been a loose network of Greek Orthodox parishes. Our church prospered in those early decades of the 20th century, helping the immigrants who had been arriving for decades more confidently assimilate into American society dominated by mainline Protestantism and an emerging Roman Catholic church.
Official government acknowledgement of the growing importance of Greek Orthodox communities nationwide was manifested in 1949, when President Harry S. Truman had the newly-elected Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, for eighteen years the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of North and South America, flown from Washington to Istanbul on the presidential aircraft. The White House was concerned that the Turkish government would not permit Patriarch Athenagoras to enter Turkey to assume his leadership position. By dispatching his presidential aircraft to transport the Patriarch into Turkey, President Truman ensured there would be no obstacles put up by Ankara against a Greek Orthodox churchman shaped by, and openly devoted to, the United States.
In 1965, amid severe civil rights tensions in America, Archbishop Iakovos flew to Selma, Alabama to attend the memorial service of a minister beaten to death for marching with black demonstrators. The Archbishop walked side-by-side with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at that time far more controversial a figure than the lionized leader he is seen as today. Archbishop Iakovos was the only hierarch of his stature from any Christian confession in America willing to make that walk, despite the death threats from strangers and also from fellow Greek Orthodox in the segregated South and beyond. He responded with the reminder that the Greek Orthodox people suffered under centuries of Ottoman oppression and should understand the importance of individual sacrifice and the responsibility of the Orthodox Church founded by Christ to stand for and uphold human dignity.
In 1984, Archbishop Iakovos founded Leadership 100, asking the Greek Orthodox faithful to each commit $100,000 (about $322,000 in 2026 dollars) over the course of ten years to a permanent endowment to support the Church’s national ministries and to advance Orthodoxy and Hellenism in America. That call to transcend the caricature of the Greek Orthodox as merely an ethnic immigrant community was carried forward by Leadership 100 in its close collaboration with Archbishop Spyridon, Archbishop Demetrios, and—since 2019—with His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America.
At the 2026 White House Greek Independence Day celebration, Archbishop Elpidophoros noted how that historic events of 1821 bind America and Greece in a “strategic alliance beyond friendship and mutual respect,” founded upon individual liberty and equal justice under the law as our God-given and inalienable rights within this experiment in self-governance, from the world’s first democracy in Greece to the world’s greatest democracy here in the United States.
He reminded the audience inside the White House, or watching virtually in Greece and around the world, that the first clause of the Bill of Rights’ First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—ahead of free speech, a free press, the right to peaceably assemble or to petition the government—is the right to freely exercise one’s religion. Furthermore, he emphasized that in the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, we pray in every parish, during every service, “for our Country, the President (regardless of party), all those in public service, and our armed forces everywhere.”
These are the Orthodox bonds that continue to connect our Greek American community from within, and also to our national celebration this 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence. Leadership 100 is proud to stand tall as a uniquely American endowment, advancing the Gospel of Jesus Christ while incorporated in New York State as a 501(c)(3) federal tax-exempt organization. This has provided the sure, steady, and always transparent foundation to Leadership 100 to welcome more than 1,400 members today, building an endowment exceeding $100 million, the largest in the Greek American community, and distributing nearly $90 million in grants sustaining Orthodox education, clergy formation, and Hellenic heritage programs nationwide.
A cornerstone of this investment is Leadership 100’s long-standing support of Hellenic College Holy Cross (HCHC), the only Greek Orthodox theological school in the United States. Through its Seminarian Scholarship Program, Leadership 100 continues to alleviate the financial burden of theological education, enabling students to fully dedicate themselves to academic and spiritual formation. In the fall 2025 semester, more than 50 seminarians received funding to cover a substantial portion of tuition and fees.
To date, Leadership 100 has provided $29 million in scholarships for seminarians within total grants of $32 million to Holy Cross. The long-term impact is profound: a majority of Leadership 100 scholarship recipients go on to serve the Greek Orthodox Church, with many becoming ordained clergy or actively engaged in parish life and ministry. We have substantially supported the national ministries of the Archdiocese, every Metropolis, and the many pan-Orthodox organizations and humanitarian initiatives that have requested our financial support.
Leadership 100 exemplifies Greek Orthodox lay leadership in America. We are the sons and daughters descended of families who built their first Greek Orthodox parish halls amid the hope of fresh roots and a new life in this great land of religious freedom, individual liberty, economic opportunity, and equal justice under the law.
Today, Leadership 100 stands tall as a powerful, influential, and highly sought-after philanthropic institution, a magnificent testament to the faith, family, education, and hard work values that define the Greek American community and that deeply and firmly embed the national Greek Orthodox presence, inspired by the Gospel of Christ, in every walk of American life, culture, and society forged by the courageous Declaration of Independence 250 years ago.
This article is published as part of the America at 250: Orthodoxy in a New Homeland media initiative co-organized by the Orthodox Observer and the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America to honor the contributions and experience of Orthodox Christianity in America and celebrate 250th anniversary of America’s founding.
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