LAST UPDATE: 13:46
The former Metropolitan of Axum, Petros (born Georgios Giakoumelos), reposed in the Lord.
The Metropolitan passed away in the Asclepeion Hospital in Voula, Athens.
Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and All Africa, who is on a pastoral visit to Kisumu, Kenya, performed a Trisagion for the rest of the soul of the late Metropolitan, in the presence of hierarchs of the Throne.
The funeral service will be held on Thursday, November 26, 2020, after the Divine Liturgy, at the Church of Panagia Marmariotissa (Chalandri) and the burial will take place in the cemetery of Chalandri. Metropolitan Emmanuel of Ptolemaida will represent the Patriarch of Alexandria.
He served as Exarch of the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Athens (2004-10). He has been awarded the title of Geron.
Georgios Giakoumelos was born in Zakynthos in 1932. He studied at the Theological School of the University of Athens.
He was ordained a deacon in 1955 and a presbyter in 1956. In the same year, he attended sociology classes at the Sorbonne and studied Pastoral Studies – Catechesis in Paris. He served as archdeacon, preacher and protosyncellus of the Metropolis of Elasson, as priest in charge of churches in England and France, and as Grand Protosyncellus of the Throne.
In 1972 he was elected Bishop of Babylonia while in 1974 he was appointed Patriarchal Vicar of Cairo. In 1979 he was elected Metropolitan of Axum, Exarch of all Ethiopia and Eritrea, a position he held before his election as locum tenens by the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Alexandria. He served as Patriarchal Exarch of the Metropolis of Kenya and Eirinoupolis in 1996 and 1997.
In 2015, Metropolitan Petros of Axum, who resigned due to advancing age, was replaced by Daniel Biazis from Zakynthos.