The long-time Metropolitan of Thessaloniki, Anthimos, reposed on Thursday morning at the age of 91. His body lay in state at the metropolitan cathedral of Aghia Sofia (Holy Wisdom) in the afternoon.
Anthimos resigned as Metropolitan in August 2023, remaining as Elder (emeritus) Metropolitan in the northern Greece metropolis.
The hierarch served as the shepherd of the Thessaloniki bishopric for 19 years after having been elected by the Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece. He previously assumed the ecclesiastical throne of the Metropolis of the Alexandroupolis, in extreme northeast Greece.
After an archieratical exodios funeral service, interment will follow in the courtyard of the St. Grigorios Palamas Cathedral and in the cenotaph of reposed Metropolitan Gennadios.
Born Dionysios Roussas in the village of Salmoni in Elia prefecture in southwest Greece in 1934, was first ordained as a deacon in the Church in 1964.
Anthimos was a well-known and vocal proponent of the Church of Greece’s positions on a variety of matters, while he also did not shy away from taking a – mostly conservative – position on national issues.
