HELLENIC SPIRIT FOUNDATION
NEWS RELEASE
By: Nicholas Karakas
St. Louis University has announced its invitation of Metropolitan to speak at the campus onMarch 3, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. Father Ware is a convert to the Orthodox Christian faith, at the age of 24, having been reared Anglican.
The Metropolitan has made several speaking visits to St. Louis, including Washington University at Graham Chapel. It is believed that this heavy speaking tour in the US may be his last visit since he is now approaching his late 80’s.
Born Timothy Ware in Bath, Somerset, England, 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.
He has traveled extensively 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 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. He is considered one of the foremost Orthodox Christian Theologians in the world. His presentation will be at Du Bourge Hall, North Grand, 4th floor. Admission is free.
