LAST UPDATE: 16:50
Today, Wednesday, June 12, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which meets since morning in its regular June meetings, filled the vacancy of the Archbishop of the Holy Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.
Metropolitan Nikitas (Lioulias) of Dardanelles, Director of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute (PAOI) in Berkeley, California, was voted unanimously, after three candidates were proposed, by the vote of the members of the Holy Synod held in the Patriarchal Ch urch.
At the same time, the Holy Synod decided to express its delight to the former Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain, Gregory, for his many years of ministry and offering to the faithful people of this important ecclesiastical Province of the Mother Church.
The new Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain
Metropolitan Nikitas (Lulias) of Dardanelles, Exarch of All Hellespont, was born in Tampa, Florida, United States in 1955.
He studied at the University of Florida, from which he received his degree in Religion (1976).
He then attended the Theological School of the Holy Cross of Boston, where he graduated in 1980 and then completed postgraduate studies at the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1982)
He was ordained a Deacon in 1985 by Archbishop Jacob of America and in the same year he became a Presbyter.
He served in Saints Constantine and Helen (Merriville, IN) Church, and, since 1987, in the Holy Diocese of Chicago as Secretary.
In 1988 he received the Archimandrite’s officium and became a Protosyncellus at the same Bishopric.
In St. Petersburg, Russia, he completed his studies in History and Russian language.
He taught selected courses on Orthodoxy at the Loyola University of Chicago.
On December 2, 1996, he was unanimously elected as Metropolitan of Hong Kong and ordained on the 14th of the same month at the Patriarchal Church of St. George.
His enthronement took place at St. Luca Cathedral in Hong Kong on January 12, 1997 and became the first regular priest of the newly-established Hong Kong Metropolis, and then he was appointed at the Dardanelles Metropolis in 2007.
It is finally worth mentioning that Metropolitan Nikitas is the Director of the Berkeley USA Patriarchal Orthodox Institute “Patriarch Athenagoras” in Berkeley, USA.
