 | ||
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia is the Australian archdiocese of the Greek Orthodox Church, part of the wider communion of Orthodox Christianity. The archdiocese is a jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. As of 2015, there were over 120 parishes and eight monasteries in the four diocesan districts of the archdiocese.
Contents
Archbishop of Australia
Archbishop Stylianos is the primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of Australia. He was appointed to the position in 1975. The archbishop is a theologian of international standing. He is the co-chairman of the official dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches. He has won an award for poetry and has written 16 collections.
History
The first churches founded by Greek Orthodox in Australia were Holy Trinity in Surry Hills, Sydney (1898), and Annunciation of the Theotokos in East Melbourne (1900). The first priest to serve the religious needs of the Greek Orthodox population in Sydney and Melbourne was Archimandrite Dorotheos Bakaliaros. In March 1924, the "Metropolis of Australia and New Zealand" was established under the Ecumenical Patriarchate to cover the expanding Greek population, which by 1927 numbered over 10,000 and had established churches in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Port Pirie in South Australia. The first metropolitan of the new province of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was Christoforos Knitis of Serres. In 1929, Metropolitan Christoforos returned to his homeland, Samos. He died on 7 August 1959.
In 1931, Timotheos Evangelinidis was elected as the second Metropolitan of Australia and New Zealand. He arrived in Australia on 28 January 1932 and presided over the church in Australia and New Zealand until 1947 when he was elected Metropolitan of Rhodes. On 22 April of that year, Theophylactos Papathanasopoulos was elected as the third metropolitan. On 2 August 1958, Metropolitan Theophylactos was killed in a car accident. In February 1959 the assistant bishop of the Archdiocese of America, Bishop Ezekiel Tsoukalas of Nazianzos, was elected Metropolitan of Australia. He arrived in Sydney on 27 April 1959.
On 1 September 1959, the Metropolis of Australia and New Zealand was elevated to an archdiocese and Metropolitan Ezekiel to an archbishop. Archbishop Ezekiel's episcopacy coincided with a period of great expansion in the numbers of Greek Orthodox in Australia through immigration, and many of the parishes that the church has today were formed under his guidance. In August 1974, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elevated Archbishop Ezekiel to the titular see of Metropolitan of Pisidia. He died in Athens in July 1987. On 3 February 1975, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate unanimously elected the Metropolitan of Miletoupolis, Stylianos Harkianakis, a lecturer at the University of Thessaloniki, as the new Archbishop of Australia. Archbishop Stylianos arrived in Sydney on 15 April 1975 and was officially enthroned on Lazarus Saturday, 26 April 1975.
Primates
Archbishops in Australia
Assistant bishops in Australia
St Andrew's Greek Orthodox Theological College
St Andrew's Greek Orthodox Theological College is an Eastern Orthodox Christian seminary located in Redfern, Sydney, New South Wales. The college was established in 1986 by Archbishop Stylianos, who had proposed the establishment of a theological college during the fourth clergy and laity congress in 1981. There was an need for a theological college that would be primarily dedicated to theological study in co-operation with other theological colleges. It would be hoped that a centre of theological reflection and ecumenical dialogue would be created, offering the Orthodox worldview and perspective with scriptural commentaries, the writings of the Greek Fathers, the Orthodox liturgy, iconography and spirituality.
Greek Orthodox monasteries in Australia
There is a growing monastic presence in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. Examples are the newly built Holy Cross and Pantanassa monasteries.