Nicholas Elko

Nicholas Thomas Elko (December 14, 1909 – May 18, 1991) was an American Ruthenian Greek Catholic and the third bishop of the Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh. Pope Pius XII in 1952 named him a domestic prelate with the title of Reverend Monsignor. He was appointed that same year as the Rector of the Exarchate's new seminary, the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of SS. Cyril and Methodius.

Bishop Daniel Ivancho appointed Elko in 1954 as the Rector of St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cathedral. Yet just three months later, Ivancho abruptly resigned as bishop, and the Holy See directed Elko, as the Vicar General of the Exarchate, to administer it. Bishop Stephen John Kocisko was installed to the position.

Elko's administration also undertook the construction of more than one hundred churches and schools. but a new bishop, Stephen Kocisko, was installed for Passaic. Controversy By 1967, Elko's popularity within his own church waned on account of the rapid change he led, the confusion among laity around many Vatican II reforms, and especially Elko's authoritarian management style. Whether priest or laity, ethnic or assimilated, many in the Church were agitated by Elko's leadership. Petitions were signed and sent off to Rome. The Vatican, fearing more dissension in the Church like that experienced during the 1930s, transferred Elko to Rome. He was then elevated to archbishop and appointed as the ordaining prelate for the Byzantine Catholics in Rome and head of the Ecumenical Commission on the Liturgy. Bishop Kocisko was named as the new Bishop of the Eparchy of Pittsburgh in December 1967. White Heat Over Red Fire features Thomas Christophe, a young Eastern Catholic bishop ministering in post-war Austria. The novel makes much of the intrigues of the Cold War years, the struggles of the Church in Eastern Europe, the attempts to reconcile the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and the upheaval within the Catholic Church in the wake of Vatican II.

He also co-wrote The Family: America’s Hope in 1979, with Michael Novak, Harold Voth and James Hitchcock.