One of the most influential figures in the English-speaking Orthodox world has reposed in the Lord.
His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, 87, the author of the well-known books The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way and countless articles, reposed this morning around 1 AM, reports the Patriarchate’s Phos Phanariou outlet.
He is also known for producing English translations of The Philokalia, The Lenten Triodion, and The Festal Menaion.
Met. Kallistos served as a hierarch of the Church for 40 years. He had been ill for quite some time, and was able to receive the Holy Mysteries just hours before he reposed.
May his memory be eternal!
***
Born Timothy Ware in Bath, Somerset, England, on September 11, 1934, Metropolitan Kallistos was educated at Westminster School (to which he had won a scholarship) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took a Double First in Classics as well as reading Theology. In 1958, at the age of 24, he embraced the Orthodox Christian faith (having been raised Anglican), traveling subsequently throughout Greece, spending a great deal of time at the Monastery of St. John the Theologian in Patmos. He also frequented other major centers of Orthodoxy such as Jerusalem and Mount Athos. In 1966, he was ordained to the priesthood and was tonsured as a monk, receiving the name Kallistos, in honour of St. Kallistos Xanthopoulos.
In the same year, he became a lecturer at Oxford, teaching Eastern Orthodox Studies, a position which he held for 35 years until his retirement. In 1979, he was appointed to a Fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford, and in 1982, he was consecrated to the episcopacy as a titular bishop with the title Bishop of Diokleia, appointed to serve as the assistant to the bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. Despite his elevation, Kallistos remained in Oxford and carried on his duties both as the parish priest of the Oxford Greek Orthodox community and as a lecturer at the University.
Since his retirement in 2001, Kallistos has continued to publish and to give lectures on Orthodox Christianity, traveling widely. Until recently, he was the chairman of the board of directors of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge. He is the chairman of the group Friends of Orthodoxy on Iona. He serves on the advisory board of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.
On March 30, 2007, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elevated the Diocese of Diokleia to Metropolis and Bishop Kallistos to Titular Metropolitan of Diokleia.
