Beneath crystal chandeliers, amid long tables crowned with white orchids and the steady glow of floating candles, the cultural centre of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada filled on the evening of June 14 with the low murmur of a community gathered for a single purpose. A wide screen above the head table carried a grainy image from another century, and the room rose to its feet as clergy in black robes processed toward the front, one young guest holding a small Greek flag against his chest while a girl in a white dress watched the procession pass. The evening that followed would trace nine decades of one life, the patient building of Orthodoxy in Canada out of the most modest of beginnings, and the question that sits at the centre of every diaspora gathering, which is how a people abroad keeps its faith and its language alive for the children who will inherit them.
The gathering took place on Sunday, June 14, at the Metropolitan Cultural Centre of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada in Toronto, where more than 600 people sat down to a formal dinner in tribute to the life and ministry in Christ of His Eminence Archbishop Sotirios. The evening marked the official presentation of a commemorative volume from the Saint Nicholas Cathedral Community, titled “90 Years of a Bright Journey,” the most recent of four books the community has published since 2022 to record the historical and continuing ministry of the archbishop.
The event was organized by Anastasia Sotiropoulos, president of the Saint Nicholas Cathedral Community, working with a team of volunteers. The head table brought together Archbishop Sotirios; Ignatius, the former metropolitan of Arta, who travelled from the Church of Greece accompanied by Archimandrite Theologos Ntouvalis; the Reverend Father Photios Tsamis, president of the Clergy Syndesmos of Canada; the Reverend Father Evangelos Athanassoulas, parish priest of the Saint Nicholas Cathedral; Abbess Alexia of the Saint Kosmas Aitolos Monastery; the consul general of Greece in Toronto, Ioannis Chatzantonakis, with his wife, Marilena Griva; Archon Evagelos Sotiropoulos, president of the Ecumenical Patriarchate Archons in Canada; Archon Jim Anas, treasurer of the Archdiocese; Zoe Veroutis, president of the Philoptochos of Canada; and Betty Skoutakis, president of the Greek Community of Toronto. Among the elected officials in attendance were Vince Gasparro and Jean Yip, members of Parliament; Effie Triantafilopoulos and Jonathan Tsao, members of the Ontario legislature; and Nick Mantas, a Toronto city councillor.
The formal program opened with the evening’s masters of ceremonies, Nancy Gymnopoulos and Vicky Topos-Tsakalos, who introduced Nicholas Sirmalis, a graduate of the Patriarchal Toronto Orthodox Theological Academy, to sing the Greek and Canadian national anthems as the hall stood in silence.
In her welcome, Anastasia Sotiropoulos spoke of the weight of the moment and the response it had drawn from the community. “The love of our families was proven to be even greater than the walls of this room,” she told the gathering, describing the hundreds who had called wishing to attend. She described the archbishop in the language of leadership rather than office. “He is a true leader,” she said, “a leader who is always there for his people on the front line.”
Father Photios Tsamis carried the greetings of the clergy across Canada and used the occasion to remind those present of how recently the church’s present comforts had arrived. “We have big churches, we have decorated churches, we have everything today,” he said, “these came because one, the archpriest, took care of them.” Consul General Chatzantonakis followed with words of esteem on behalf of Greece, reflecting on the meaning of the archbishop’s work for Hellenism in Canada and for the bond between the community and the motherland.
Archon Evagelos Sotiropoulos then presented the four volumes the Saint Nicholas Community has produced since 2022, extending the community’s thanks to the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of Chrysopigi in Chania, Crete, which assisted in the publications. He began, by his own description, with a peculiar photograph, the same faded image projected on the screen behind the head table. It showed a scene from 1963, when the future archbishop, then a young priest ordained only a year earlier, baptized an infant in Saskatchewan in a plastic garbage can for want of a font. “That’s where we came from as a church and that’s where we came from as a community,” he said. He set the image against the present, recalling the first arrivals from Greece who had built the church. “Many came from motherland Greece,” he said, “with little in their pockets but with a strong and unyielding desire to work for the betterment of themselves, their family, and this gracious country that we love and call Canada.”
The personal thread deepened with Archon Jim Anas, treasurer of the Archdiocese’s national board of directors and a collaborator of the archbishop for more than 50 years, who painted his portrait from memory. “Sixty years ago at a Greek Orthodox youth conference in Montreal, I met a young priest,” he said, recalling a first encounter that began with a difference of opinion. He reached back to the diocese he inherited on the eve of the archbishop’s arrival. Asked to review the finances in 1973, he found, as he put it, “just over a thousand dollars in the bank of the diocese.” From that point, he said, the archbishop led a transformation of the church across the country. He remembered the regional youth assemblies of the 1980s that drew hundreds of young people, reaching 500 at one gathering, and the fireside talks where nothing was off limits, down to the bishop’s favourite hockey team, which in those years, he noted with a smile, was the Montreal Canadiens.
The keynote was delivered by Ignatius, the former metropolitan of Arta and a longtime friend of the archbishop. He spoke with evident emotion of the honoured guest’s childhood, of the humility that has marked his bearing, and of the work accomplished across a lifetime of service in the vineyard of the Lord. At the close of his address, the cathedral community presented him and the archbishop with flowers and a token of gratitude at the lectern.
Final remarks came from Archbishop Sotirios himself, who spoke in his familiar manner, with plain words and without notes. He recounted a difficult childhood in Epirus, his early devotion to the church, and the benefactors who made his education and his ministry possible. “It is not a shame to ask for the advice of people who know better than you,” he said. “It is not a shame to be humble.” He measured the distance the church has travelled. “Here in Canada, when I came in 1962, we started from the very beginning,” he said, returning to the image of the infant he had once baptized in a garbage can, now an adult and a benefactor of the same Saskatchewan community. He reserved his deepest gratitude for the Ecumenical Patriarch. “The Great Benefactor, not only of myself but also of the Church of Canada, is His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, whose determination and vision led, in 1996, to the establishment of Canada as a separate Metropolis, distinct from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America,” he said. “This historic decision greatly fostered the growth and flourishing of the Orthodox Church in Canada.”
The archbishop returned again to the simplest of instructions, drawn from the example of Saint John the Evangelist, whose sermon, he recalled, ran to two words. “Love one another,” he said. He spoke too of the years behind him and the road ahead, telling the hall he had tried his best and would continue to do so, and acknowledging that he was giving serious thought to retirement.
The musical portion of the evening followed, as the assembled clergy chanted “Axion Estin,” the Apolytikion of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra, and the fimi of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Youth dance groups then took the floor in traditional costume, the dancers in red and dark blue skirts and embroidered white blouses moving in line across the centre of the hall while the guests looked on.
The evening closed with a reception of Lenten fare, served in observance of the Apostles’ Fast.
