Today, Saturday, March 20, 2021, took place the enthronement ceremony of Elder Metropolitan Emannuel of Chalcedon.
It should be reminded that on February 16, 2021, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected Metropolitan Emmanuel of France as the new Elder Metropolitan of Chalcedon.
Metropolitan Emmanuel (Adamakis) was born in Agios Nikolaos, Crete on the 19th of December 1958, where he completed his studies. He studied at the Pedagogical Academy of Heraklion, Crete and completed his studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic Institute of Paris in parallel with his theological studies at the Theological Institute of Saint Sergius in Paris. In 1984, he was awarded a Master’s degree from the Ecumenical Institute of the Catholic University of Paris, and the following year a bachelor’s degree from the Sorbonne University (Paris IV) in History of Religions. He was ordained a Deacon and a presbyter in 1985.
In 1987 he received a Master’s degree from the School of Theology of the Holy Cross of Boston and assumed the duties of Protosyggelos of the Holy Diocese of Belgium, where he served as Head of the Parish of Archangels Michael and Gabriel in Brussels. For twenty years (1994-2014) he headed the Office of the Orthodox Church in the European Union.
On the 5th of September, 1996, he was unanimously elected Bishop of the Diocese of Regio by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as Assistant Bishop of the Metropolitan of Belgium. On the 20th of January 2003, he was unanimously elected Metropolitan of France by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, while he was also assigned to represent the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Theological Dialogue of Orthodoxy with the Ancient Eastern Churches. He is the Chairman of the Board of the KAICIID Interfaith Foundation in Vienna, the Co-moderator of the International coalition Religions for Peace, and the President of the Conference of European Churches (CEC). He participated in many ecumenical and scientific conferences.