Tag: Meletios Metaxakis
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Meletios Metaxakis’s Support for St Tikhon
The 1923 Pan-Orthodox Congress is most (in)famous for proposing the Revised Julian (“New”) Calendar, which was subsequently adopted by many (but far from all) of the world’s Orthodox Churches. The Congress occurred at one of the most tumultuous moments in church history (you can read all about the crazy year that was 1923 here). One…
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How Did Orthodoxy Get Into This Mess?
It almost goes without saying that the Orthodox world is a mess right now. The situation in Ukraine alone is a disaster: a Russian invasion of the country backed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by the state, and a recognized-by-only-some Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that was created…
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Classified British Documents on Meletios Metaxakis
In the fall, I visited Hellenic College-Holy Cross (where I delivered this paper on the EP’s “barbarian lands” theory), and while I was on campus, I took the opportunity to visit the school’s library and track down an extremely rare collection of 232 once-classified British government documents on Meletios Metaxakis. These documents were compiled by…
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An Interview with Meletios Metaxakis
In the spring of 1919, Meletios Metaxakis was the Metropolitan of Athens and primate of the Church of Greece. World War I had ended the year before, and the Great Powers were still sorting out what the world would look like going forward. On April 27, 1919, the Atlanta Constitution published a long article summarizing…
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The Origins of the ‘Barbarian Lands’ Theory
This paper was originally presented at the conference “The Greek Archdiocese at 100 Years,” Hellenic College-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, October 7, 2022. I am indebted to numerous friends and colleagues who reviewed the paper in advance and provided feedback. I am especially grateful to M., who provided original translations of the 1908…
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Meletios Metaxakis’s Failed Jerusalem Coup d’Etat
In the summer of 1908, an insurgent group known as the “Young Turks” rebelled against the Ottoman Emperor Abdul Hamid II, forcing him to restore the long-suspended Ottoman constitution. In the wake of the Young Turk Revolution, the local Palestinians in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem saw an opportunity to increase their role in the Patriarchate,…
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The Prestige of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Editor’s note: Yesterday, I continued my series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25, focusing on 1922. One of the many major events that year was the Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis’ recognition of Anglican holy orders. In the mid-1940s, Fr. Kyrill Johnson, who knew Meletios personally, wrote about this “recognition” and the patriarchate of Meletios…