Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople
Athinagoras (Greek Αθηναγόρας, usually transcribed Athenagoras, born March 25, 1886 in Tsaraplana, Epirus, † July 7, 1972 in Istanbul, civil Aristoklis Spyrou ) was Patriarch of Constantinople Opel from 1948 to 1972.
He was born in 1886 under the name Aristoklis Spyrou in Tsaraplana, Epirus. In 1910 he was ordained a priest and served as secretary of the Holy Synod of Greece. 1913, at age 26, he was elected Metropolitan of Corfu, and in 1930 made him the Holy Synod of Constantinople Opel as Archbishop of North and South America.
He served the Church in America very good service - so well that he was chosen away from the Patriarch of Constantinople Opel. The esteem in which he enjoyed in the U.S., showed, for example, that the U.S. President Harry S. Truman presented him his own plane for the return to Constantinople Opel available.
Athinagoras took office as the Ecumenical Patriarch on 26 January 1948, proved to be a real patriarch ecumenism. He not only visited all the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate but also the headquarters of the World Council of Churches in Geneva and the Anglican Primate of Canterbury. With Pope John XXIII. he was a friend since his time as Patriarch of Venice.
Most significant were two other trips: the to Jerusalem, where on 5 and 6 January 1964, Pope Paul VI he. met, a meeting that led to a breakthrough in relations between Rome and Constantinople Opel. The most important gesture was that the Pope Athinagoras as the successor of the Apostle Andrew the head of the Apostle returned, that was one of the four main relics in the four pillars of St. Peter before, and the Crusaders had stolen in 1204 in Constantinople Opel.
July 25, 1967, Pope Paul VI visited. the Ecumenical Patriarch, who returned the visit on 28 October 1967. In his encyclical Christmas Patriarch Athinagoras wrote. " We shared with His Holiness the Pope of Rome, a cross and the Holy Chalice and prayed that our merciful God would grant our Holy Churches of East and West as soon as possible grace, that we share the communion of the Holy Sacraments again so, as was the case until the year 1054. "
This meeting led to the Roman Catholic Church and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Opel withdrew on behalf of the Orthodox Churches, the mutual excommunications that had pronounced in 1054 (see: all eastern schism ). This was a significant step towards reconciliation between the two churches.