Anthimus VII (Patriarch of Constantinople)

He studied at the Zosimov school in Ioannina ; in 1861 he graduated from the Halka Theological School on Halki ; student at the University of Athens.

He taught at the Zosimov School and the Women's Institute in Ioannina, acting as hierocirix. In June 1869, Hirtonisan became Bishop of Paramythia ; since 1877 - Metropolitan of Enos. In 1889, he refused to be appointed to the Anchial Chair, living in Ioannina; in 1893 - Metropolitan of Korchansky , and from July 21, 1894 - Metropolitan of Leross and Kalymnos .

After abdication in January 1897 he retired to the island of Antigone , where he died.

During teaching at the Zosimov school he composed a treatise “Evidence of the Deity of Jesus Christ, borrowed from the Holy Scriptures and the creations of the Holy Fathers” (Athens, 1865) - a refutation of the work of Joseph Renan “The Life of Jesus”; in 1892 he published a collection of words on the Gospel of John under the title "Mentor of Piety."

His signature appears under the District Message ^[1] , published in August 1895 in response to the proselytic encyclical of Pope Leo XIII to the Orthodox peoples of Praeclara Gratulationis of June 20, 1894 . The message of the Patriarch and the Synod, confirming the main theses of the District Message of 1848 , signed by Patriarch Anthim VI and others, in particular, read: "<...> Leaving aside these important and essential ones in the West regarding the difference between the two churches, His bliss exposes in to its encyclical, the most important and supposedly the only reason for the division, is the question of the primacy of the Roman bishop, and it sends us to the sources, so that we examine how our ancestors thought and what they bequeathed to us in the early days of Christianity . But referring to the Fathers of the Church and the Ecumenical Councils of the first nine centuries, we are fully convinced that the bishop of Rome was never looked at in the Church as the highest authority and infallible head, and that every bishop is the head and primate of his private church, obeying only the cathedral definitions and the decisions of the universal Church, as the only infallible, and, as church history shows, the bishop of Rome did not at all constitute an exception to this rule. <...> the papal church, although it already recognizes the corruption and forgery of those decrees on which its unlimited claims are based, is not only persisting in returning to the canons and definitions of the Ecumenical Councils, but also in the end of the nineteenth century, continuing to expand the existing divide of division, openly proclaimed, to the amazement of the entire Christian world, the infallibility of the Roman bishop. The Orthodox Eastern and Catholic Church of Christ, except for the ineffable embodiment of the Son and the Word of God , knows no one else who would be infallible on earth. The apostle Peter himself, whose successor the pope considers himself to be, renounced the Lord three times; he was convicted by the apostle Paul , as he did not act in relation to the truth of the gospel ( Gal. 2:11 ). ” ^[2]

He was dismissed due to insufficient, according to some Greeks, energy on the appointment of Metropolitan Uskubsky ( Skopje ): instead of a Greek, Serb Firmilian was appointed.

1. I.I. Sokolov . Church of Constantinople in the 19th century. Experience of historical research . T. I, St. Petersburg, 1904, p. 683-685.

• Anfim VII article in the Orthodox Encyclopedia
• Ἄνθιμος Ζ´ Help on the website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
• Patriarch Anfim VII is a friend of Russia, an enemy of the papacy “Russian Herald” on March 6, 2009.