Memoirs of Peter Boudoures Chapter 34 Fr. Lokis Recants

Fr. Basil Lokis

Two days after the bombing at Pearl Harbor, Father Lokis came to see me. As he approached my office in the restaurant I knew something was wrong. He proceeded to tell me that he had had a number of telephone calls from New York and that he eventually decided not to go on with the separation. He apologized to me and asked me to excuse him. He was sorry that he had exposed me to such a program with which he later found impossible to proceed. I, in turn, thanked him and told him that he did not have to apologize. I told him that I had no regrets for what we did. I said to him that I thought he was making a mistake not proceeding with our plans. I told him he did me a favor because, under the circumstances with the United States at war, it would have been a most difficult task for me to go around the West to ask people in other churches to break away with us. I wished him good luck and told him that I hoped that the day would come when I would see him as a Bishop. In the meantime we still had plenty of unfinished business at our own church.

I learned later that the Archbishop did not want to appoint Father Lokis as a bishop, not because he was not able, not because he could not make the best of it, but because he considered Lokis to be something of a rebel. The Archbishop felt that it was better not to have anyone appointed rather than to have Father Lokis as bishop.

(Editors note: Fr. Lokis left the Annunciation in 1943 without permission of the Archdiocese. He went to Alexandria, Egypt, in the hope, and expectation, of becoming a bishop. He is said to have been appointed chancellor of the Patriarchate in Alexandria, but not bishop. It is also believed that while in Egypt he was active on behalf of the Office of Special Services, (OSS, and later, CIA) acting on behalf of the American Government. The fact that he, as a civilian, was able to travel to Egypt during the war would clearly seem to indicate that his trip was Government sponsored. At that time, during the German occupation, the Greek Government in Exile was located in Egypt. Fr. Lokis came back to the Annunciation, unannounced, in 1945 and asked the then Priest, Fr. Pantelakis, if he could officiate in the Sunday liturgy. Fr. Pantelakis called the Archdiocese in New York for instructions, and was told that Fr. Lokis could not participate in any church service for the time being. Fr. Lokis then went to New York and met with Archbishop Athanagoras. Evidently, they made their peace and Fr. Lokis was given a parish in New York. He died a few years later of a massive heart attack outside his church.)

(Editors note: The Archdiocese had a rule that if a parish council member was married he had to have been married in the Orthodox Church in order to serve on the parish council. For many years this rule that was more honored in the breach. Martha Boudoures was somewhat of a free spirit. She refused to have a church wedding, in any church, Orthodox or otherwise. As a result, from the early 1940s and thereafter when the Archdiocese began enforcing this rule, Peter Boudoures, Chris Katon and others could no longer be members of the Annunciation Parish Council.)