The Holy Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain sadly announces the falling asleep of His Excellency Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia on Wednesday 24th August 2022.

A noted scholar, lecturer and author, and devout and faithful clergyman, a beloved spiritual father, His Excellency served Christ and His Church for many years. His words, spoken and written, made Orthodoxy known to the entire world, especially to his native land.

He was the founder of the Greek Orthodox Church of Holy Trinity Community in Oxford.

The clergy are asked to offer the appropriate memorial services and the faithful are asked to pray that God will receive his soul in His Kingdom and number him among the just.

When funeral arrangements are finalised, they will be made known to the public.
May his memory be eternal

Kallistos Ware (born Timothy Richard Ware, 11 September 1934 – 24 August 2022) was an English bishop and theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 1982, he held the titular bishopric of Diokleia in Phrygia (Greek: Διόκλεια Φρυγίας), later made a titular metropolitan bishopric in 2007, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. He was one of the best-known modern Eastern Orthodox hierarchs and theologians. From 1966 to 2001, he was Spalding Lecturer of Eastern Orthodox Studies at the University of Oxford.

Born Timothy Richard Ware in 1934 to an Anglican family in Bath, Somerset, England, he was educated at Westminster School in London (to which he had won a King’s Scholarship) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took a double first in classics as well as reading theology. On 14 April 1958, at the age of 24, he embraced the Orthodox Christian faith. He described his first contacts with Orthodoxy and the growing attraction of the Orthodox Church in an autobiographical text entitled “My Journey to the Orthodox Church”. While still a layman, he spent six months in Canada at a monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Thoroughly conversant in modern Greek, Ware became an Orthodox monk at the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Patmos, Greece. He also frequented other major centres of Orthodoxy such as Jerusalem and Mount Athos. In 1966, he was ordained to the priesthood within the Ecumenical Patriarchate and was tonsured as a monk, receiving the name “Kallistos”.

Professional and ecclesiastical life
In 1966, Ware became Spalding Lecturer at the University of Oxford in Eastern Orthodox studies, a position he held for 35 years until his retirement. In 1970, he was appointed to a fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1982, he was consecrated to the episcopate as an auxiliary bishop with the title Bishop of Diokleia (in Phrygia) in the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Following his consecration, Ware continued to teach at the University of Oxford and served in the Greek Orthodox parish in Oxford. On 30 March 2007, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elevated the Diocese of Diokleia in Phrygia to a titular metropolitan diocese and Ware to the rank of metropolitan.

Since his retirement in 2001, Ware had continued to publish and to give lectures on Orthodox Christianity. He served as chairman of the board of directors of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, and was chairman of the Friends of Orthodoxy on Iona (Scotland) and of the Friends of Mount Athos.

Death
On 14 August 2022, Ware was reported to have died, however his caregivers refuted this and instead confirmed he was in critical condition and “approaching the end of his life”.[6] He died at home in the early hours of 24 August 2022.

Honours
Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) was awarded an honorary doctorate at Cluj-Napoca University in Romania, Lawrence University of Wisconsin in the United States, the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Belgrade’s Orthodox Theological School, the St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris, the School of Philosophy in Athens, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, New Georgian University in Poti.

In 2017, Ware was awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the Archbishop of Canterbury “for his outstanding contribution to Anglican-Orthodox theological dialogue”.

One Response to We sadly announce that Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia founder of the Greek Orthodox Church of Holy Trinity community in Oxford has passed away

  1. Mara Brockbank says:

    As a teenager I attended his ordination to priesthood at tge Cathedral of t Sophia in London. I read his books a
    nd when I saw him several years ago I mentioned that I remembered him as a young priest, he thought I was too young. Great mind and it was acyually nice having a priest who could speak English.

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