Athens, November 10, 2017
Photo: patriarchateofalexandria.com His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatios of Pentapolis reposed in the Lord yesterday, the Patriarchate of Alexandria reports. Note that the retired hierarch reposed on the day that the Alexandrian Church celebrates the great wonderworker and hierarch St. Nektarios of Pentapolis on the New Calendar.
The late prelate of Pentapolis was born George Mandelides in Edessa in 1930. He graduated from the Theological Academy in Athens in 1952 and was ordained to the diaconate in 1968, followed by the priesthood in 1969. He was elevated to the rank of archimandrite in the same year. He served for 40 years as a preacher, in the Holy Metropolis of Larissa until 1998. He also served as a pastoral assistant to the missionary elder Archimandrite Hariton Pnevmatikakis in the Congo. He was placed in charge of a missionary group in 1997.
He was elected as Metropolitan of Central Africa by the Holy Synod of Patriarchate of Alexandria on March 14, 2003. He retired due to health reasons on March 4, 2010, and was honorably elevated on November 23 to titular Metropolitan of Pentapolis, with the title “the Diocese of St. Nektarios, the Wonderworker, Bishop of Pentapolis.” He continued his missionary service until the day he died.
His Eminence’s funeral will be held tomorrow at the Church of St. Nicholas Pefkakia, with the burial following at the Zographos Cemetery in Athens, Greece.
Memory eternal!
