AXIOS to Honor Archbishop Iakovos

His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America, is coming to Los Angeles, and AXIOS will recognize his quarter century of enthronement as primate and his 50th year of his ministry by naming him “Man of the Year” at a Music Center gala Nov. 15.

The Harvard University theologian, who holds more than 30 honorary degrees from colleges and universities, has been decorated by two Presidents and received the humanitarian Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was the first Greek Orthodox archbishop to visit a Pope in more than three centuries when in 1959 he contributed to the re-establishment of ties between Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy.

A proponent of civil, human and religious rights, he marched in Selma, Ala., in 1965 with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1966 visited Vietnam and serves on the advisory council on religious rights in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He has been a leader in the World Council of Churches.

William Oldknow and Nick Christy co-chair the event for AXIOS, an organization of Southern California business and professional men of Greek heritage. Larry Adamy is president.

While here, the archbishop will be a house guest of the Oldknows. For the black-tie gala, Carlo Spiga will conduct the Los Angeles Pops Orchestra in concert in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Named honorary dinner chairmen are Bishop Anthony, George Christopher and Sen. Nicholas C. Petris.

Charles Ritcheson, university librarian at USC, has put together a delightful evening for Sunday honoring his Oxford classmate in the 1950s, the Ambassador of India Shankar Bajpai, and Mrs. Bajpai. It’s the USC Library’s salute to the nationwide “Festival of India.”

His program features “Glimpses of India,” drawings by the late A. Quincy Jones, USC’s dean of architecture who did Sunnylands, the Rancho Mirage desert home of the Walter Annenbergs. The Bombay Palace will cater Indian cuisine in the Doheny Memorial Library setting and later a coterie of invited guests will dine American style in the library rotunda.

Beth (Robert) Lowe, who’s given her heart and soul to two years as president of the Performing Tree, the organization that sponsors arts events in public schools and furthers the art illumination of educators, will be in the spotlight “for being super” Nov. 16.

New president Mrs. Kenneth Jonsson (Diana) and Mmes. Donald Dickerson and Robert Funkhouser will fete her at a party at the Jonsson home in Pacific Palisades.

It was a total “Roll On You Golden Bear,” fight for California and all hail, Blue and Gold evening the other night at the Frank Vodhanels in Hancock Park. Oski, the Cal bear mascot, had a perpetual smile. So did Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman and the contingent of vice presidents who came down for the Cal/UCLA conflict.

It was purely, fun fund raising to pay for the band’s travel.

Hugh Maguire, vice chancellor Mac Laetsch, Stephen Keller and Mrs. James Cherry were reminiscing about the chauvinistic all-male rooting section of the 1950s. Current alumni president Claude Hutchison was joined by past presidents Shirley Connor and Bill Milliken. Curt Simic, vice chancellor for development, was discussing the California Student Foundation headed by Tim Maechling, Sarah Keller and Tommy Collins, when Sarah Keller unexpectedly dropped in on the party, just arriving from her trip down from Berkeley.

The Donald Keenes and the Duncan Shaws Jr., by tradition (for the fourth year), co-chaired the party, with support from the Richard Battelles, Lud Renick, the James Bennetts, the Richard Hotalings, the Robert Krogers, Nancy Robinson Renick. Even non-Bears, such as John and Dee Maechling and and Janet and Gary Davidson were shouting hails.