Christodoulos (Archbishop of Athens)

Born January 17, 1939 in Xanthi in Northern Greece.

In 1962 he graduated from the law school, and in 1967 - the theological school of the University of Athens .

In 1961 he was ordained a deacon ; in 1965 - in the presbyter . He carried obedience in the parish of the Assumption in Paleon Faliron , a suburb of Athens , for 9 years.

For 7 years he was Secretary General of the Holy Synod.

In 1974 he was elected Metropolitan Dimitriad (historical department of the ancient city near present Volos ).

Since 1998 - Archbishop of Athens and all of Hellas. Due to political tensions with the then government, neither the President nor the Prime Minister of Greece, Costas Simitis , was present at his intronization on May 9 ^[2] .

He reorganized the Synod committees in accordance with modern social and other challenges, creating, in particular, the Synodal Committee on Bioethics.

December 14, 2006 in the Vatican had a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI ^[3] - the first official visit of the head of the Church of Greece to the Vatican. Earlier, in April 2005, Christodoulus attended the funeral of Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, in Rome.

In January 2008, the Archbishop was awarded the Russian international award "For Outstanding Activities to Strengthen the Unity of Orthodox Peoples" ^{[4] [5]} .

Illness and demise

In June 2007, he underwent surgery in Athens to remove a cancerous tumor of the intestine ^[6] , but later it turned out that the tumor also affected the liver .

On October 8, 2007, three months before his death, due to the detection of metastases , the liver transplant operation planned at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami , USA was canceled ^{[7] [8]} .

On October 27, 2007, Archbishop Christodoulos returned to Greece and spent the last three months of his life in his house near Athens, where he died on Monday January 28, 2008 at the age of 69.

According to Greek television, citing police sources, within two days more than 300 thousand people came to the Athenian Annunciation Cathedral to say goodbye to the deceased ^[9] .

On January 31, 2008, the funeral ritual of the late archbishop was headed by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, co-served by the primates of other local Churches; the service was attended by the entire political leadership of Greece ( K. Papoulias , K. Karamanlis , etc.); The Moscow Patriarchate was represented by Metropolitan of Minsk Filaret ^[10] .

In his tombstone speech, Patriarch Bartholomew noted “his zeal in church affairs, tireless work for the good of the Church, the closeness of youth, devotion to the Greek people, a great contribution to the public and charitable works of the church, not only in Greece, but everywhere where our Orthodox brothers suffered - in Serbia, Russia, Lebanon and other countries . "

The burial took place with state honors at the First Cemetery of Athens ^[11] in the hierarchal necropolis, next to the cemetery church.

In 2003, there was a sharp aggravation of relations between the leadership of the Patriarchate of Constantinople , on the one hand, and the Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church and personally Archbishop Christodoulos, on the other hand, due to disagreements on the procedure for appointing 36 dioceses of the so-called New Territories ( Epirus , Macedonia , Thrace) to the bishopric. and northern Aegean), since 1928 they were nominally in the canonical jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, but in actual jurisdiction of the EOC. In view of the sharp confrontation, on April 30, 2004, on the basis of a decision of the Synod of his Church, Patriarch Bartholomew broke the Eucharistic communion and stopped commemorating the Archbishop, and among the accusations by Phanar against the Archbishop there were accusations of “conspiring” with the Russians to weaken the influence of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s chair ^{[ 12]} ; a month later, reconciliation and restoration of relations as a whole was achieved under the conditions of Constantinople ^{[13] [14]} .

He criticized globalization, steps to separate the school from the church, reform of Greek spelling as actions hostile to churches and people; He found justification for terrorist acts against the United States, called the Turks "Oriental barbarians" ^{[15] [16]} .

In early May 2001, despite the mass protests ^[17] , he received Pope John Paul II , the former official guest of the country's president Stefanopoulos, in Athens , and did not object to the opening of a mosque in Athens next year. However, in January 2002, referring to the decision of the Synod, rejected the invitation of John Paul II to visit Rome on a return visit ^[18] .

In May 2001, he visited Russia as a guest of the Moscow Patriarchate ^[19] .

December 7, 2001 received the President of Russia Vladimir Putin ^[20] .

In 2005, a number of Greek bishops (both the EOC and outside it, for example, the subsequently deposed Jerusalem Patriarch Irenaeus ) was implicated in a corruption scandal, and a number of journalists associated with their activities and Christodule ^[21] .

In July 2006, he condemned the Israeli leadership, saying that "Israel’s actions to realize its right to self-defense have long crossed any rational boundaries" ^[22]

•   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Christodoulos (Archbishop of Athens)
• Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and All Hellas (Paraskevaidis) on the MP website
• Stefan Makaridis. The Decade of Christodoulos.
• Primate of the Hellenic Orthodox Church Interfax.ru died on January 29, 2008
• Christodoulos, archbishop of Greece's Orthodox Church, dies. The Associated Press January 28, 2008