by Brandon Gallaher
“Meeting him I sensed immediately a quality of authenticity,
of integrity, of completeness; here I felt was a true man.
He was marked by a serenity, by a transparent and luminous joy”
(Kallistos Ware, “Mount Athos Today” [1976])
A Moment of Pan-Orthodox Unity
In a time when the Orthodox Christian world is broken by schism—the schism over Ukraine being merely the most ulcerous—the recent death of Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia (1934-2022) is perhaps one of only a few events that has managed to briefly unite the Orthodox world in a “bright sadness.” Memorial services were held by both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Phanar and at his death bed by prominent figures in the Russian Church (Moscow Patriarchate [MP]) who were his former students (Metropolitan Hilarion [Alfeyev] of Budapest and Hungary [MP] and Bishop Irenei [Steenberg] of London [ROCOR-MP]). Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain, the Exarch…
