Memoirs of Peter Boudoures Chapter 28 Litigation at Holy Trinity

Fr. Basil Lokis

People in the congregation led a movement to demand the resignation of every member of the board of trustees. They wanted to start the negotiations over again with the St. Sophia church. Immediately, out of the eleven board members six responded by resigning right after church adjourned. The other five were approached the next day and, for reasons of their own, refused to resign. Some smart person convinced them to hire an attorney.

The five went before the Honorable Frank Deasy, Judge of the Superior Court, and asked for an injunction to prevent Father Lokis from entering the church. Their allegations included the fiction that Father Lokis was trying to take the property away from the Greeks of San Francisco and to turn it over to the Archdiocese in New York. This accusation was based upon an article of the Constitution of the Archdiocese that Holy Trinity had not adopted. It said that if and when the local church was dissolved the property of the church and whatever belonged to it would revert to the Archdiocese. The article was intended to protect church property from being looted by parishioners or others in the event of abandonment. This was almost impossible in a city like San Francisco where there were so many Greeks. The court issued a temporary injunction.

When Father Lokis was prevented from entering his office he came to see me. He said, "Peter, what is this?' He showed me the injunction. I said to him, "Father, don't worry. I don't know what prompted the judge to issue it except that, perhaps, he was friendly with the attorney, maybe the attorney, being smart and influential, convinced the judge to sign it. We will have our day in court and this temporary injunction will be dissolved, I assure you."

I then called my friends, Dr. Peter Angel and William Petris, an attorney. Together we met with Father Lokis. We talked the matter over and decided to fight the case in court. Upon the presentation of our case at the hearing, Judge Frank Deasy dissolved the injunction. But in doing so, he also ordered that new elections be held in view of the fact that six members of the board had resigned. The new elections would determine who would be the new members of the Holy Trinity board. Also the membership would vote on the issue of joining the two churches together. So, two factions were formed at Holy Trinity. One group favored the uniting of the two churches and one opposed it. The group opposing the union was small in number but loud in voice.

On the day of the elections two representatives from St. Sophia were present at Holy Trinity to observe the voting. They were both professional men. I don't remember if there was a third one, but they made a big mistake. After the voting was concluded, they left together to go to lunch and left the ballots unguarded. Some of those at Holy Trinity who opposed the union had conspired in advance to fix the election. To no one's surprise, while the men were out to lunch , the ballot boxes were changed. When the election was over and the ballots were counted, the opposition that did not want unity had overwhelmingly won the election.

It was evident that something was wrong, someplace, but we couldn't prove it. Then, a day or two later, before we were to go to court to report the result of the elections, one of the men from the opposition came to the restaurant. In my presence and the presence of William Petros and Dr. Angel, he confessed that they had changed the ballot boxes and said that he would be willing to testify in court. When we went to court, to no one's surprise, he repudiated everything and would not admit that the voting was fixed.

It became evident that we were trying to do business with a minority of people who had no regard for decency or for truth or for law and order. We had no desire to continue going to court forever and ever. The result was that Father Lokis decided to quit Holy Trinity and to leave the city.