Metropolitan Ireney (Patron Saint St. Irenaeus of Lyons,

secular name A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of Civil registry, registration of the birth an ...

John Bekish, born Ivan Dmitriyevich Bekish, russian: Иван Дмитриевич Бекиш, pl, Jan Bekisz; 2 October 1892, Mezhirech,

Lublin Province The Lublin Voivodeship, also known as the Lublin Province (Polish language, Polish: ''województwo lubelskie'' ), is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in southeastern part of the country. It was created on Januar ...

(now

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

) – 18 March 1981,

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

) was the

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

of the

Orthodox Church in America The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is an Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian church based in North America. The OCA is partly recognized as Autocephaly, autocephalous and consists of more than 700 parishes, missions, commun ...

(OCA) from 1965 until his retirement in 1977. He was succeeded by Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazor). Metr. Ireney was involved in the negotiations that led to the granting of

autocephaly Autocephaly (; from el, αὐτοκεφαλία, meaning "property of being self-headed") is the status of a hierarchical Christian church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in Eastern O ...

in 1970 to the OCA, which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

. As the primate of a now-autocephalous Church, Metr. Ireney was granted the title of His Beatitude.

Notes and references

1892 births 1981 deaths Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America People from Staten Island Primates of the Orthodox Church in America 20th-century Eastern Orthodox archbishops 20th-century American clergy {{Eastern-Orthodoxy-bio-stub