The Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Christodoulos, born Christos Paraskevaidis, was born on January 17, 1939 in Xanthi and studied Law and Theology. Doctor of Theology, graduate in French and English, conversant in Italian and German, ordained deacon in 1961 and elder in 1965.
For nine years he was a preacher at the church of the Assumption of the Virgin Faliros, while he served for seven years as secretary of the Holy Synod. As a youth, only 35 years old, in 1974 he was elected metropolitan of Dimitrias, from where he left when he was elected archbishop of Athens. He took part in many ecclesiastical missions abroad, while he authored a number of scientific and edifying texts. He wrote articles in the church press, but also in newspapers.
He was elected archbishop of Athens and all Greece in 1998. Under his leadership, the work of the Church was promoted in the entire social sector. New organizations were established covering areas such as bioethics, the care of drug addicts, the battered woman, the single mother. Finally, he founded the Non-Governmental Organization "Solidarity", through which intervention with humanitarian aid was carried out on a global scale.
Archbishop Christodoulos fell asleep on January 28, 2008, after a long battle with cancer.
