DEATH OF PATRIARCH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 228, 28 September 1935, Page 7

DEATH OF PATRIARCH

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 delegation of the Eastern | Orthodox Churches, and was received I at Buckingham Palace by the King. White - bearded, dignified, biack* robed, and learned, lie 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 frind and fellow-Cretan, M. Venizelos, appointed him head of the Church in Greece. When Venilezos fell in 1920, however, Mgr. 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 them. In Constantinople he was stoned; once he was flung down a flight of stairs and left for dead. While the Allied troops were in Occu pation a Turkish attempt lo kidnap him was in progress, and the launch in which he was to be taken away to be hanged was waiting, when British mill tary police intervened. He was taken away to safety in a British gunboat. I The triumph of the Kema lists made I it. impossible for him to return to Constantinople, and he went into the Monastery of Mylopotamos, on Mount Athos. Then, in 1926, he was elected Patriarch of Alexandria. He had al wavs shown strong English sympathies, and no one had done more for (.ho union of the Orthodox and Anglican Churches.