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The Greek-Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa, Petros VII, died on Saturday 11 September, in an accident involving the helicopter in which he was travelling with 16 other people, over the Aegean Sea. Second-ranking in the Orthodox hierarchy after the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, Petros VII was a personality highly esteemed in his Church for his openness and his humanitarian mission in Africa. The prelate 55 years’ old, the youngest ever to hold his rank had been appointed to the Church of Alexandria in 1997. He was supposed to make his first official visit as patriarch to Mount Monte Athos, but died before reaching his destination. Many messages of condolence have been received from representatives of the political and Orthodox worlds. Engaged in consultations in Brussels, the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I issued a statement expressing his “great sorrow” for the loss of “this dynamic and active patriarch, a brother loved by the Greeks and by the African people, who leaves behind him an important missionary work in the African continent”. The Patriarch of all the Russias Alexis II who recently received Petros VII in Russia has also expressed his condolence in a message sent to the council of the Orthodox Church in Alexandria. “This great loss says the message has struck the whole of Orthodoxy”. Messages of solidarity have also been sent by the Foreign Minister of Serbia-Montenegro and by the Orthodox priests of Romania who prayed for him in Sunday mass in the patriarchal cathedral of Bucharest.
