Born: August 23, 1927
Died: February 3, 2000

Father Nicholas G. Lassios was born in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan on August 23, 1927 to George and Vasilia Lassios. He had an older brother named Hermes. He attended public schools in Washington Heights and went on to graduate from Stuyvesant High School. Upon graduation in 1945, he enlisted in the army and served in the occupational forces in Japan for two years. After his discharge from the service, he attended City College in New York City and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering,

Fr. Nicholas and I met in 1950 at a party at our local parish, Saint Spyridon. I was then a freshman at City College. After four years, in 1954, we married and lived in Washington Heights until 1958 when we moved to Rockland County, NY with our first daughter. We were blessed with three daughters and have four grandchildren - two girls and two boys.

In the early 70's Father was a Sunday School teacher for the fifth grade class and started taking some courses at Saint Vladimir's Seminary in Westchester, NY. He become more and more interested and determined to learn more about our faith. By the late 70's, after many years of study, he was ordained a deacon. In January 1981, he was ordained into the priesthood at the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Danbury, CT.

Father served as assistant pastor at Danbury for several years while still employed as an engineer. He was asked to establish a parish in Middletown, NY now known as Holy Cross Church. After leaving the Middletown parish, he was asked to form a new parish in New Haven, CT. He was successful in raising funds to erect a small edifice and this parish is the present Saint Basil community. Ironically, just two days before the official opening of the church doors, Father suffered a severe heart attack requiring a quadruple bypass. Thankfully he survived the surgery and immersed himself in serving Orthodox inmates in local prisons and ministered to their families as well. He formed the Holy Cross Prison Ministry and was visiting sixteen different facilities in NY, NJ and CT. Not only did he visit each prison once a month, he established a correspondence course and provided each interested inmate with a copy of the Orthodox Study Bible and had regular and continuous exchanges with, not only Orthodox prisoners, but anyone who expressed a desire to learn. Father Nick also performed a baptism in the prison and chrismated a former Catholic inmate. The men who were incarcerated loved Fr. Nick and he gave them back unconditional and non judgmental love in return.

On February 3, 2000, Father suffered his second and final heart attack. Shortly before he passed Archbishop Demetrios had invited him to come to the Archdiocese to discuss the possibility of Fr. Nick writing a book regarding prison ministry to be used as a guide for fellow clergy. Sadly the work he started and devoted to many years in developing has not been continued. Many of the inmates still write to me and tell me how much Fr. Nick meant in their lives.