EPCHS Alum In The Spotlight: Fr. Jim Greanias, Class Of 1979

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — When Jim Greanias graduated from Evergreen Park Community High School in 1979, he figured to have a long career in politics ahead of him. After all, he was in the first class of interns led by Mr. Dystrup, and began working for Congressman Marty Russo even before graduation.

“But after a while, I was getting somewhat disenfranchised with all the political stuff and figured a change was needed,” said Greanias, who made the change from politics to religion in the mid 1980s.

Father Jim, as he’s known to his congregation, has been the presiding priest at St. Iakovos Greek Orthodox Church in Valparaiso, Indiana, for the past 23 years.

“My dad was a priest, and he passed away during my senior year of college,” Father Jim said. “I really wanted to start helping people, and remembered how my dad would be able to do that without giving up his principles.”

Before he was ordained, Father Jim worked at a Greek Orthodox Church in nearby Palos Hills as a lay assistant before he was moved to Merrillville, Indiana, to be an assistant priest at Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Soon after, he landed at St. Iakovos — which was established as an off-shoot of the Merrillville church — to become the presiding priest.

“We have a really good group of people,” Father Jim said of the 150 or so Northwest Indiana residents who make up the congregation. “We’ve already built our own community center, where our church is located now, and are striving to build our own church building that’s now under construction.”

“Our people are kind, friendly and devoted,” he added. “I’ve never had any difficulties with our congregation.”

Although he’s decades removed from his time at EPCHS, Father Jim can still reel off the name of nearly every one of his teachers from the late 1970s. He was a member of a 16-0-0 freshman wrestling team at EPCHS, and called working on the Mustang Monitor student newspaper “a lot of fun, with many laughs and good memories.”

“It was a great time to grow up,” he said.

Father Jim was back at EPCHS this past May when his older brother, Stanley Greanias, Class of 1967, was inducted into the school’s Hall-of-Fame.

“We were able to walk around, and I have to say I became very jealous of the weight room,” he said. “When I was there, the weight room was so small only 5 guys could work out at a time.”

He called the new sports fields “absolutely beautiful.”

“I’m glad to see the kids now have things we never had, but I do have to think sometimes that maybe I was born a decade or 2 too early.”