SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CRETANS’ ASSOCIATION
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
CONDOLENCES
We are deeply saddened by the
passing of a long-time member of
our Cretan Association and friend,
Nicholas Joseph Akrotirianakis,
78, of Whittier, California, who fell
asleep in the Lord on June 16, 2014.
Mr. Akrotirianakis was born
June 20, 1935, in Chania, Crete, to
Nicholas Joseph
Sifis (Iosif) Akrotirianakis and
Akrotirianakis
Eleni (nee Saridakis). As a child,
he survived the May 1941 bombing of Chania and the
subsequent Nazi invasion and occupation (of which
he later wrote in a 2011 memoir), and, as a teenager,
he survived the Greek Civil War.
Following the Civil War, he studied English at the
Greek-American Institute of Athens and law at the
University of Athens. He received his law degree, with
honors, in 1960 and passed his bar examinations.
He proudly served in the Royal Hellenic Air Force
from April 1960 to November 1962, as a Second Lieutenant assigned to the Press and Public Relations Directorate of the General Air Staff. Fluent in Greek and
English and conversant in French, he hosted a number
of NATO delegations to Greece and the Swedish delegation to the wedding of Juan Carlos I of Spain and
Princess Sofia of Greece and Denmark, who later became the King and Queen of Spain.
Following his honorable discharge from his military
service, he came to the United States on June 29, 1963,
through the Fulbright Program, and studied economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the
State University of New York at Buffalo.
Mr. Akrotirianakis lived in Montreal, Quebec, from
1964 to February 1968, where he worked as a junior
officer of the Royal Bank of Montreal and perfected his
fluency in French.
He married Barbara Jean Akrotirianakis (nee
Proulx) in Detroit, Michigan, on March 1, 1968. They
moved to California in 1968 and have lived in Whittier,
California, since 1969. Until his retirement in 2008, he
worked in the transportation industry as an accountant.
Mr. Akrotirianakis returned to his homeland in
2006 and completed a pilgrimage to the Church of
Panagia Evangelistria on the island of Tinos, fulfilling
a promise made by his mother while their family sheltered in the ancient Venetian walls of Chania during
the 1941 bombing.
He was devout in his Orthodox faith and steadfast
in his belief in God’s promise of everlasting life in the
Kingdom of Heaven. For more than 35 years, he offered
his talents as a chanter and choir member at several
Greek Orthodox churches in Southern California.
He was a warm, friendly and positive person over
the course of his life, and he always saw his glass half
full, even throughout his three-year illness.
He is survived by Mrs. Akrotirianakis and his sons,
Fr. Stavros Nicholas Akrotirianakis, of Riverview,
Florida, and Joseph Nicholas Akrotirianakis, of Pasadena, California, his daughters-in-law, Presvytera Lisa
Akrotirianakis and Sherese Marie Akrotirianakis,
and his grandsons, Nicholas Stavros (7) and Nicholas
Joseph and Michael Joseph (both 21 months).
His love of his faith, history, the law and his Cretan heritage lives on through his children, as does his
philoxenia (hospitality). May his memory be eternal.
—HELEN SKANDALE,
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
LEFKA OREE, MODESTO, CALIFORNIA
STATHOUDAKIS BIRTH
John and Megan Stathoudakis are happy to announce the birth of their second
child, Arianna Renee Stathoudakis. Arianna was born May 3, weighing 9 lbs, 13 oz.
The Stathoudakis’ reside in Modesto, as well as the proud grandparents Mihalis and
Arianna Stathoudakis Olympia Stathoudakis, and Renee Pruismann.
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KPHTH | OCTOBER 2014