File No. 702.6811/40.
The Secretary of State to the Attorney General.
Washington, March 28, 1914.
Sir: Under date of December 17, 1913, the Greek Chargé d’Affaires advised the Department that the Greek Orthodox Community of Philadelphia had brought an action in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Mr. Aristote Tsakonas, the Greek Consul at Philadelphia, seeking to compel said Consul to communicate to a certain person the latter’s appointment by the Holy Synod of Greece as Pastor of the Community, which appointment had been mailed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Consulate, and that said Court had issued a decree placing the Consul under an injunction to hold the papers relating to the matter in safe keeping until the further order of the Court. In reply, the Department advised the Greek Chargé that it appeared primarily to be the duty of the Consul to present to the Court the [Page 329] means of defense available to him under the Consular Convention between Greece and the United States.
Under date of March 7, 1914, the Greek Chargé responded to the effect that his Government adheres to its opinion that the aforesaid suit, being an action bearing on the discharge of the Consul’s official duties, is tantamount to an intervention of the local authorities in the Consul’s relations with his Government, contrary to the provisions of the existing Consular Convention between Greece and the United States, and in particular Article VI thereof, which expressly stipulates that “The Consular offices shall at all times be inviolable. The local authorities shall not, under any pretext, invade them. In no case shall they examine or seize the papers there deposited* * *.” The Chargé asks that such steps may be taken as may be deemed appropriate to induce the local official authorities to desist from any further proceedings in the said suit.
The Department therefore requests that if possible you will instruct the United States Attorney at Philadelphia to represent to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania that this Department is of the opinion that the Court’s action in entertaining this suit against the Consul may be found to be in violation of the provision of Article VI of the Consular Convention of November 19, 1902, between the United States and Greece, as well as at variance with the principles of international law relative to the immunity of consular archives (Moore’s International Law Digest, Vol. V, p. 48 et seq.), and to suggest to the court the apparent advisability of dissolving the injunction granted and of discontinuing the litigation in question.
I have [etc.]