PATRIARCH’S DEATH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 293, 24 September 1935, Page 8

PATRIARCH’S DEATH

AN ADVENTUROUS LIFE. After an eventful career Mgr. Meletois Metaxakis, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, has died at Alexandria from heart failure. He was 65. Five years ago (says the “Daily Telegraph”) he was in London. He went to the Lambeth Conference as head of the delegation of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and was received at Buckingham Palace by the King. White-bearded, dignified, black-robed and learned, he was a man whose charming demeanour never betrayed the thrilling adventures through which he had passed on behalf of his Church. In his earlier years he organised the Church in Crete, and in 1918 his friend and fellow-Gretan, M. Venizclos, appointed him head of the church in Greece.

When Venizelos fell in 1920, however, Mgri Meletois went to the United States, from which country he was recalled because of his election as “Oecumenical Patriarch.” He knew the dangers, but he faced l them. In Constantinople ho was stoned; once lie was flung down a flight of stairs anti left for dead. While the Allied troops were in occupation a Turkish attempt to kidnap him was in progress, and the launch in which he was to bo taken away to be hanged was waiting, when British military police intervened. He was taken away to safety in a British gunboat. The triumph of Kemalists made it impossible for him to. return to Constantinople, and he went into the Monastery of Mylopotamos, on M£. Athos. Then, in 1926, he was elected Patriarch of Alexandria. • He had always shown strong English sympathies, and no one had done more for the union of the Orthodox and Anglican Churches.