Our New Archbishop of Australia

St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College joyfully welcomed the news of the election by the Holy Synod of our Ecumenical Patriarchate on 9 May 2019 of Bishop Makarios (Griniezakis) of Christoupolis as our new Archbishop of Australia.

Born in Heraklion, Crete, in 1973, he studied at the Higher Ecclesiastical School of Athens and the Theological School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Highly educated in ecclesiastical matters, he has a Master of Sacred Theology at the University of Boston, a Master of Arts in History of Science at Harvard and a Master of Bioethics at Monash University. His doctoral dissertation was received and passed with an “Excellent” score from the Medical School of the University of Crete. The work was published under the title, Cloning: Social, Ethical and Theological Components. He has an interest in science and theology, and founded and currently runs the publishing series, “All About Bioethics”, under the auspices of the Church of Constantinople. Since 2003 he has been teaching at the Higher Ecclesiastical Academy of Heraklion. He has occasionally taught courses at various universities, including Hellenic College, the Medical Schools of the Universities of Crete, Thessaly and Athens. In May 2015 he was elected First Dean of the Theological Seminar of the Autonomous Church of Estonia. He held numerous positions as a cleric, before the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew appointed him Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Throne of the Phanar. He served many senior positions in the Holy Archdiocese of Crete before being elected bishop. [Source: Neos Kosmos]

We pray that our Lord may grant to our new Archbishop that he remain in peace, safety, honour, health and length of days, and that he may rightly teach the word of our Lord’s truth.

Ἄξιος! May he be worthy!