Born on December 14, 1909, to Rusyn immigrant parents in Donora, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the Monongahela River Valley, he attended the public schools there and in 1930 graduated from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
Bishop Basil Takach ordained him to the priesthood on September 30, 1934, at St. Nicholas Greek Catholic Church in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
On February 16, 1955, Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, the Vatican's delegate to the United States, announced that Elko would be elevated to the episcopacy.
He immediately sought and was granted permission by Rome to permit English, in addition to the ancient liturgical language, Church Slavonic, to be used in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.
However, in the spirit of Latinization and assimilation, Elko recommended that many traditional Byzantine architectural features, such iconostasis, or as icon screens, be omitted or removed from the new or renovated churches.
[1] Since its inception in 1924 as the "Apostolic Exarchate of United States of America, Faithful of the Oriental Rite (Ruthenian)", the organizational status of Elko's American Greek Catholic Church was merely that of a missionary territory with limited self-governing authority, the homeland being Europe—albeit under Communist persecution since 1946.
A decree by the newly elected Pope Paul VI divided the entire U.S. territory of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church into two separate ecclesiastical jurisdictions.
This prompted his resignation as the Ruthenian Bishop of Pittsburgh, and Monsignor Edward V. Rosack, the chancellor of the eparchy, was named as the temporary apostolic administrator.
The case of Bishop Elko, who describes his situation as 'exile', casts fascinating light on Catholicism's current internal stresses...".
White Heat Over Red Fire features Thomas Christophe, a young Eastern Catholic bishop ministering in post-war Austria.