Married priest suspended for alledgedly sending woman lewd selfies

By Isabel Vincent And Melissa Klein
New York Pos
January 15, 2017

http://nypost.com/2017/01/15/married-priest-suspended-for-sending-woman-lewd-selfies/

Father Luke Melackrinos

A Long Island priest has been suspended for allegedly sending sinful selfies.

Father Luke Melackrinos, a married father of three and the spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St. Paul, was called into a Nassau County police station on Jan. 8 to address a complaint involving “inappropriate email exchanges he had with a woman,” according to a letter sent to parishioners by his bishop.

No charges were filed against Melackrinos but he was “immediately placed on a leave of absence” because “there is a certain code of behavior expected of our clergy,” read the letter written by Bishop Andonios Paropoulos, the chancellor of the Greek Orthodox church in the United States.

Melackrinos “consented to immediately begin seeing a professional for evaluation so we can determine the proper course of action,” the bishop wrote.

He told parishioners that the 46-year-old Melackrinos “fell in a moment of weakness.”

The National Herald, a newspaper covering the Greek community, reported that Melackrinos was sending “electronically inappropriate photographs of himself to (a) female parishioner,” citing sources in the parish community.

But Andonios told The Post that the email exchanges did not involve a member of the parish or any of its employees.

“What I do know so far is that the interaction was limited to emails,” he said “It never progressed to an actual meeting.”

This is not the first time that allegations of sexual misconduct have been made against the priest.

Two years ago, Melackrinos had an affair with a woman he met on the Ashley Madison web site, according to the woman’s now-estranged husband.

“He’s a piece of garbage,” the husband told The Post last week.

When asked by The Post in 2015 about the purported liaison, Melackrinos denied an affair. He said he met the woman at a local Starbucks when she overheard someone call him “Father Luke.”

“She approached me for counseling as a pastor. They were having marital difficulties,” he said.

He did not return messages seeking comment on his latest troubles.

Melackrinos was assigned to St. Paul’s in 2003 and promoted to pastor in 2006. Disgraced former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos worshiped at the church. His father, Basil Skelos, was among its founders.

The Greek Orthodox church has been rocked by sex scandals in recent years.

In 2015, the Rev. George Passias of St. Spyridon Church in Washington Heights was defrocked after videos emerged of his kinky affair with the principal of the parish school. The married Passias also impregnated his mistress, who was also married.

Passias long denied the affair with the woman, Ethel Bouzalas, whom he said was his “spiritual goddaughter.”

The Post revealed that Passias and Bouzalas had been engaging in sex acts that involved her seductively sitting on a piece of banana bread — a fetish called “cake crush.”