Hi TK,
Thank you very much for your suggestion that it might not be an engraving error but rather a variant spelling of the name
Elias. Examining the seal once again, there does seem te be another vertical
bar at the left, making H a possibility, although a letter pi is also possible, but would not make any sense. I think the seal can indeed be safely attributed to an individual named
Elias.
Your reading of HLHA as the name reminded me of another seal I
had a while ago that
had St. Nicholas' name spelled NHKWLAOS, with eta and omega - instead of NIKOLAOS, with iota and omicron - (I have attached the photo,
his name is in the fields, the 'theta' is actually a tiny A in a letter O, which stand for 'O Hagios')
I would be curious to hear of the backgrounds for this phenomenom, but maybe I should post that question not here, but on a linguistics board...
Regards
Gert