Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens

His Beatitude Christodoulos I. (Greek Χριστόδουλος; born January 17, 1939 as Christos Paraskevaidis ( Χρήστος Παρασκευαΐδης ) in Athens, † January 28, 2008 ibid ) was Archbishop of Athens and head of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece.

Life

He studied in Athens and received there the priest. After further studies it was established in 1967 to Dr. theol. doctorate. On 14 July 1974 he was consecrated bishop and was from 1974 to 1988 Metropolitan of Dimitrias. From 1985 to 1998 he was responsible for the ecumenical relations of the Church of Greece. On 29 April 1998 he was appointed Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

On 29 April 1998, he was the highest body of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Synod, was elected as the successor of Seraphim I as head of the Greek Orthodox Church. The highlight of his tenure was the visit of Pope John Paul II in 2001 in Athens; it was the first visit by a pope to Greece since the separation of the two churches in 1054. using his official return visit in 2006, Benedict XVI. he was the first head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Rome. In a joint statement, the express wish was expressed for ecumenical cooperation: " It is our shared responsibility to overcome in love and truth, the manifold difficulties and painful experiences of the past."

Christodoulos died of cancer. After the announcement of his death, a four-day state mourning has been declared in Greece. The Archbishop was laid out in the Athens Cathedral, where more than 300,000 people, including many young people, the last honors paid him according to the Greek police. Christodoulos was given a state funeral with full honors of a head of state who died in office. On the day of his burial schools and offices remained closed; throughout the state mourning waved the flags on public buildings and the Greek embassies at half-mast. The Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral and the subsequent funeral ceremony at the First Cemetery of Athens were conducted on the request of the late Archbishop of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

His successor, the Metropolitan of Thebes, Jerome was 2008, elected.

Work

Christodoulos was considered a conservative value, but also mighty innovator in the relationship of the Church to politics and to the people. He expressed repeatedly negative about globalization and the European Union, supported against the will of the government to maintain the entry for religion in the Greek identity card, and called the Ancient Greeks as "pagans, idolaters, " whose temple at law in late antiquity largely demolished were to obtain building material for Christian churches. Great anger sparked his (later relativized ) from statement that the superpowers are themselves responsible for the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. At the same time he opened the church more for the youth, finished the condemnation of modern pop and rock music and modern clothing styles through the Church, and urged the young people, so to come to church, as they are.

Because of his activities in the northern Greek and Aegean dioceses the table fellowship was established in 2004 by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I temporarily terminated with Christodoulos I. (a form of excommunication ). The dispute was about but settled, so Christodoulos also with the Ecumenical Patriarch had good relations.

Christodoulos was for his work with the honorary doctorates from the University Alexandru Ioan Cuza Iasi (2000) and the University of Craiova (2003) excellent.