METROPOLITAN ATHANASIOS OF ACHAIA

 

Date of Consecration:

October 15, 2000

Date of Ordination to the Priesthood:

1991

Date of Birth:

1950

Full Name:

Athanasios Hatzopoulos

 

Biography

His Eminence Metropolitan Athanasios (Hatzopoulos) of Achaïa was born in Athens, Greece, in 1950. He graduated from the Department of Byzantine and Neohellenic Studies of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Athens (1972) and from the Faculty of Theology of the same University (1976). He got a Licenza from the Oriental Institute of Rome (1978). He followed a course in German language with a scholarship of the Ostkirchliche Institut in Regensburg. He spent a year in Paris for studies in the Institut Catholique and the Sorbonne University. He got a scholarship from the Catholic Church for three years (1977-1980). He got a D.Phil degree from the University of Oxford in 1984. He was the Keeper of Manuscripts of the National Library of Greece from 1983-1994. Between 1994-1997 he was professor of the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, which is the educational section of the World Council of Churches. In 1997 he was appointed one of the first professors of the Institute of Higher Studies of Chambésy in Geneva.

He was ordained as a priest in 1991 and as a bishop in 2000. In 1998 he represented the Church of Greece in the 8th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Harare, Zimbabwe. He participated in the official Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue on behalf of the Orthodox Church of Albania and he was one of the members of the first official delegation of the Church of Greece to the Holy See in the Vatican, in March 2002. He is a member of the Central Committee of the Council of European Churches. He has published several studies on the history of Christian faith. He speaks English, French and Italian.

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