A Greek Archdiocese letter dated December 29, 1932 to the administrative council of the United Hellenic Orthodox Community of Saints Constantine and Helen, Bronx, N.Y., on Archdiocese letterhead at 273 Elm Street, Astoria. Body:
“Following the departure of the Most Reverend Mr. M. Andreadis from your Community, and taking into consideration your letter of the 27th of last month, by which you request a temporary Priest to serve the coming Sunday and the feast of the Theophany, we send you as such the Most Reverend Pan. Anastasios, and we ask that you assist him in, to the extent possible, the most decorous execution of the duties entrusted to him.”
Signed “THE ARCHBISHOP and by His order, THE PROTOSYNKELLOS” — the first letter in the parish thread to explicitly invoke the Archbishop himself (Athenagoras Spyrou) in the formula, signaling escalating institutional attention to the Bronx parish.
The letter sharpens the Bronx parish timeline of 1932-33. Father Michael Andreadis, appointed to the parish on July 15, 1932, had departed within five months — leaving by late November 1932. The parish wrote to the Archdiocese on November 27, 1932 requesting a stand-in. The Archdiocese sent Father Pan. Anastasios as a temporary fill-in for the December 31, 1932 Sunday liturgy and the January 6, 1933 Theophany (Epiphany) feast — the first major feast after Christmas.
The 1933 schism erupted shortly thereafter. Whether Father Anastasios served as the parish priest through the eight-month escalation that led to the December 11, 1933 anti-Athenagoras rally at Palm Garden, or was himself replaced as the politics evolved, is not yet documented in this archive.