Archbishop Gregorios

His Eminence was born in the present-day Turkish-occupied village of Marathovounos in the district of Famagusta, Cyprus, on 28th October 1928. He was the ninth and last child of the family of the builder Theocharis and his wife Maria Hadjitofi. At the age of three he was orphaned through his father’s death.

After completing his primary education at the village school, the eleven-year-old Gregorios became an apprentice as a shoemaker in his brother-in-law’s shop, where he worked for the next eight years.

 At the age of twenty he decided to attend a secondary school for which he enrolled in 1949 at the Higher Commercial School of the town of Lefkoniko which, at that time, had only five classes. He was accepted in the second-year class.

He graduated from the Gymnasium in 1954 and went to Athens to study at the Theological School of the University there. Before receiving his university degree in February 1959, he was appointed to the Church of All Saints in London, arriving there and starting his duties at the Church of All Saints in Camden Town in April 1959. He was ordained presbyter by the late Archbishop of Thyateira, Athenagoras Kawadas, on the 26th of the same month.

In 1964 he was appointed Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Thyateira. On 12th December 1970 he was consecrated Bishop of Tropaeou by the blessed former Archbishop of Thyateira Athenagoras Kokkinakis at the Cathedral of Sta Sophia. From the first day of his ordination he undertook to organize and administer the St. Mary’s Cathedral and the Church of St. Barnabas the Apostle in Wood Green, North London.

On 16th April 1988 he was unanimously elected by the Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain and his enthronement took place at the Cathedral of Sta. Sophia in West London.