A delegation of the Holy See will attend the State funeral for archbishop Christodoulos, the primate of the Orthodox Church of Greece, which will be celebrated next Thursday. It was announced to SIR by the Papal Council for the Unity of Christians. Dead this morning in his home in Athens, the archbishop had been ill with liver cancer for some time. His body will be carried today from "Laiko" Hospital to the Cathedral of Athens, where, for three days, the congregation will be able to pay their last respects to him. Born in 1939 in Xanthi, he was ordained bishop in 1974, aged just 35, thus becoming the youngest metropolitan bishop in the Church of Greece. In 1998, he was ordained archbishop of Athens, replacing archbishop Seraphine, thus becoming again the youngest primate in the Orthodox Church of Greece. A religious conservative, extremely influential and popular in Greece, at the helm of the Orthodox Church for the last 10 years, Christodoulos boosted the renewal of the life of the Church, opening it up to modernity, by establishing some committees in charge of investigating the problems of biethics, drugs, abused women, single parents. (continued)” “
