[citation needed] He then attended Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he received a M.Div.

[clarification needed][5][6][7] By 1994, while an undergraduate student at Seattle University, Lemelson launched a retail photography business, and in 1999 he founded the website Amvona (a name derived from the Greek word for "pulpit") from his dorm room at Hellenic College.

[8] Writing in the local Massachusetts paper The Sun Chronicle in 2009, journalist Rick Foster quotes Lemelson as stating that his business focuses on cash flow rather than debt and that "Amvona owes nothing to venture capitalists."

Despite economic challenges, Lemelson launched Amvona Trails, a platform combining social networking and e-commerce and believed recessions provide an opportunity for innovation.

There was no official explanation, however journalist Filipe R. Costa speculated it was due to increased competition from Chinese companies offering cheap photography equipment online, and Lemelson's business philosophy of not taking on massive debt for the possibility of future growth.

[5] In November 2014, Lemelson was a member of the Orthodox Church's delegation for a two-day meeting between Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Pope Francis in Istanbul.

He has said that as a young man he fostered a vision that Catholics and Orthodox Christians would soon be reunited,[13] and he has stated that more progress towards reconciliation has been made under these two leaders than had taken place in nearly a millennium,[14] since the East–West Schism.

"[31] In a January 2025 interview with Russia's NTV,[32] he asserted that Elon Musk is "driven by demons," a claim later echoed by the television channel, which also aired scences from the podcast.

[39] In late April, 2014 Lemelson announced he was building a stake in the semiconductor and LED equipment maker Kulicke & Soffa Industries (NASDAQ: KLIC), saying the company was "absurdly" undervalued.

[40] In June 2014, he shorted the stock of Ligand Pharmaceuticals, criticizing its business practices in a 56-page report alleging fraud and insolvency[41] and focusing on the drug Promacta and its relationship to Viking Therapeutics.

[3] In October 2015, The Wall Street Journal published an article about Lemelson that included a claim that he boasted of his ability to "crash" stocks and quoted him as saying "My whole life I always knew things before they happened.

[3] Lemelson later published a response to the story, calling it a "directory of fallacies," and outlined what he described as 14 major factual errors and omissions, but did not deny the quote regarding prescience.

[48] In 2016 Bloomberg published an article, citing anonymous sources, stating that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was examining whether Lemelson had spread false rumours about stocks.

[59][60] Lemelson's civil motion for the SEC to pay his $1.7 million attorney's fees was denied in July 2024 by the United States District Court in Massachusetts.