On June 29, 1969, Reverend Father James Stathakios was ordained as a priest of the Orthodox Christian Church. For decades, he would preach God's word to his congregation, even as he faced his own spiritual crisis.
A freethinker, Father Stathakios walked into the catacombs of faith with many questions. College educated, he found the church's anti-intellectual properties galling. He questioned why the Holy Bible should be given precedence over the world's many other holy scriptures and why different sects of Christianity seemed bound by conflict instead of love.
All this Father Stathakios struggled with in secret, fulfilling his role as priest while quietly wondering if what he had believed for most of his life was true.
Doubts: Confession of a Priest is more than Stathakios's personal story-as intriguing and thought-provoking as that story is. Stathakios's thoughts are also a challenge to Christians everywhere to examine their faith, their church, and their God.
When you face doubt, you can choose to deny it, accept it, or struggle with it to find a deeper meaning. Stathakios chose to struggle. In doing so, he discovered much about his relationship with the religious and secular worlds.
About the Author: Born in Samos, Greece, Reverend Father James Stathakios came to the United States on a scholarship from the Greek Orthodox archdiocese to study at Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Stathakios served on the faculty of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1963 to 1969, studying medical sociology and biochemistry. He was ordained in Cleveland on June 29, 1969.
After serving the parish of Saint Spyridon in Monessen, Pennsylvania, Stathakios was reassigned to the parish of Saints Constantine and Helen in Detroit, Michigan, where he served for thirty-three years. During that time, he was given the ecclesiastical titles of pnevmatikos, economos, and protopresbyter. He retired from the church in 2007.
Stathakios is the author of the inspirational book The Gift of the Present. He married his wife, Stella, in 1964. They have two sons, Tom and James, and six grandchildren.
