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The first visit by His Beatitude Ieronymos, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, to the Russian Orthodox Church will take place from May 23 to 30, 2012.

On May 24, the Ascension Day and the commemoration day of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Archbishop Hieronymus of Athens of All Greece will celebrate the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Moscow Kremlin. Archbishop Ieronymos will also take part in the opening of the Days of Slavic Literature and Culture.

Patriarch Kirill and Archbishop Ieronymos will discuss prospects for bilateral cooperation between the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches in the areas of theological education, pilgrimage, social service and other fields.

The high guest will come to St. Petersburg and the St. Sergius’s Monastery of the Trinity and visit Moscow and St. Petersburg Theological Academies to meet with their professors and students.

The Church of Greece occupies the eleventh place in the diptych of Primates of the Autocephalous Local Orthodox Churches. Its jurisdiction includes most of Greece’s territory.

Archbishop Ieronymos was elected to the Primatial see on February 7, 2008.

His visit is called to reinforce the traditionally friendly relations between the Russian and the Greek Orthodox Churches.

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His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece (his secular name Ioann Liapis) was born in 1938 in the small village of Inofita in Beotia.

He is a graduate of the University of Athens departments of philosophy and theology and post-graduate schools of the University of Graz, Austria, Regensburg and Munich. He worked in the Archaeological Society of Athens.

He was ordained as deacon and presbyter in 1967.

He acted as Protosyncellus of the Metropolis of Thebes and Levadia (1967-1978), abbot of the Sagmata Monastery (1971-1977) and Monastery of St. Luke (1977-1981), and general secretary of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece (1978-1981).

He was consecrated as bishop on October 4, 1981.

He was member of the Synodal Commissions for scholarships, church education, church property, and church-state relations. He also worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief of the Church of Greece’s radio station.

Before the election to the archbishop’s see, he directed the Metropolis of Thebes and Levadia.

He was elected Archbishop of Athens and All Greece on February 7, 2008, and enthroned on February 16.

The Archbishop is the author of numerous works on theology, social issues and history. He was awarded the prize of the Athenian Academy of Sciences in 1970 for his monograph ‘Medieval Monuments of Euboia’. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Craiova Department of Medicine (Romania) and president of the Greek Cardiological Society.

DECR Communication Service