2008 CHURCH CALENDAR

It is with great joy and thanksgiving that we welcome as our new parish priest Fr. Dimitrios Leussis. His assignment to the Sts Constantine & Helen community is the answer to many fervent prayers for a permanent spiritual shepherd. Fr. Dimitrios was born in Aegina, Greece in 1946, the second son of George and Kyriakoula (Vatisas) Leussis. The family came to the United States the following year, settling in Charleston, South Carolina before moving to New York City in 1960. Fr. Dimitrios studied iconography at the Institute for Russian Studies and Holy Trinity Seminary, in addition to earning a Fine Arts degree at Trinity College. He then moved to Florida, where he became head of three stained glass studios. There he met and married Sandra (Kyriaki) née Johns; they have two children, Mitchel (Michali) and Lanya (Eleni), and two grandchildren. In 1993 Father was asked by the Archdiocesan Mission Center (now OCMC) to go to Slovakia to teach iconography at the Orthodox School of Theology in Presov, of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia. Father and Presvytera spent over two years at the school, and have since  returned to Slovakia on several occasions to paint icons and to teach. Having been ordained into the Deaconate, Fr. Dimitrios returned to the United States to attend Christ the Savior Orthodox Seminary in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Ordained a priest in 2000, he served several parishes, most recently in the Chicago area, and was assigned to this parish by His Eminence, Metropolitan Alexios in September of this year.