Bishop Kassianos of Aravissos offered a memorial service for the director (also known as scholarch) of Halki seminary, the late Metropolitan of Stavroupolis, Maximos, who passed away thirty years ago.
The late hierarch graduated with honors from the seminary in 1944. In 1951, after graduating from the University of Leuven in Belgium, he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the seminary and in 1955 he became its director. He remained in this position until his death in 1991. During his long tenure, he faced the painful, unjust and incomprehensible decision of the closure of the academic department of the seminary in 1971. However, he remained a vigilant guardian with self-sacrifice and self-denial, waiting for its reopening. He always cared for the seminary, keeping it in good condition, always ready to welcome new students again.
In order to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary since the passing of this great church figure, who served the seminary for four decades, the Halki seminary dedicated this year’s calendar to his memory.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who attended the seminary during the years of his tenure and later served as his assistant, noted in the preface that the late director “became by his example a symbol of total devotion to the seminary and hoped for its reopening,” for which the Ecumenical Patriarch is working and praying until today.