Oak Lawn, Illinois, March 24, 2022
Photo: domoca.org
His Eminence Archbishop Paul, the Orthodox Church in America’s hierarch of Chicago and the Midwest, was diagnosed with an incurable form of brain cancer earlier this month.
According to a priest who visited him on Tuesday, the cancer has quickly taken its toll, and His Eminence is already preparing for his repose.
Fr. John Zdinak, a retired priest of Abp. Paul’s diocese, writes:
I visited my Bishop , Archbishop Paul this evening. He is weak and approaching the end of his earthly sojourn. I am sad because of our friendship and his current condition. I expressed the love and good wishes of his clergy here in the Cleveland deanery. He has been my Bishop and friend since before his elevation to Bishop of our Church. He has loved his diocese, both clergy and laity, as a true shepherd loves his sheep. May grant him peace and comfort as he approaches our Lord and Savior! I ask that we all remember him in our prayers, that the Lord increase his faith as he prepares to meet Him and bring him into His Heavenly Kingdom
The Archbishop was also visited by the primate of the OCA, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of Washington and All America and Canada. “Metropolitan Tikhon offered prayers and spent some time speaking with Archbishop Paul offering words of love and encouragement,” the diocese reports.
It was announced at the recent session of the Holy Synod of the OCA that His Grace Bishop Daniel of Santa Rosa, Auxiliary of the Diocese of the West, has been appointed administrator of the Diocese of the Midwest for a period of 30 days.
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Abp. Paul’s biography from the site of the Orthodox Church in America:
Archbishop Paul was born in 1953 to Nicholas and Georgia Gassios, natives of Castanea, Greece. He, his parents, and his sister Agatha lived in Detroit until their move to the suburbs in 1973.
As an infant, he was baptized with the name Apostolos, in honor of the holy Apostle Paul, at Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, Detroit, MI—his home parish for the first 28 years of his life.
He graduated from Detroit’s Cooley High School, where he was a member of the National Honor Society, in 1971, after which he enrolled in Wayne State University as a history and psychology major. After his graduation in 1976, he worked with emotionally and physically abused children. He furthered his education at Wayne State, from which he received a Master of Social Work degree in 1980, and continued to work in his chosen field.
In the mid-1980s, he became a member of Holy Transfiguration Church, Livonia, MI. He began theological studies in September 1991 at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, Yonkers, NY, from which he received his Master of Divinity degree summa cum laude and served as valedictorian in 1994. He was ordained to the priesthood by His Eminence, the late Archbishop Job of Chicago and the Midwest, on June 25, 1994.
After ordination, he was assigned Priest-in-Charge of Saint Thomas the Apostle Church, Kokomo, IN, which he served until June 2005, after which he resided at Saint Gregory Palamas Monastery, Hayesville, OH until May 2006. He briefly served as Rector of Archangel Michael Church, St. Louis, MO and the Nativity of the Holy Virgin Church, Desloge, MO before his transfer to the OCA’s Bulgarian Diocese and assignment as Dean of Saint George Cathedral, Rossford, OH in 2007. In August 2014, he was named Administrator of the Diocese of the Midwest and relocated to Chicago.
On October 20, 2014, he was tonsured to monastic rank with the name Paul, in honor of Saint Paul the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople. On October 21, 2014, the Holy Synod elected him to fill the vacant Episcopal See of Chicago and the Diocese of the Midwest.
Archimandrite Paul was consecrated to the Episcopacy and enthroned as Bishop of Chicago and the Midwest at Chicago’s historic Holy Trinity Cathedral on Saturday, December 27, 2014. Concelebrating at the Consecration Liturgy were His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon; His Eminence, Archbishop Nathaniel of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate; His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West; His Eminence, Archbishop Melchisedek of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania; His Eminence, Archbishop Nicolae of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in the Americas; His Grace, Bishop Irénée of Ottawa and Canada; His Grace, Bishop Michael of New York and New Jersey; His Grace, Bishop Alexander of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese; and His Grace, Bishop David of Sitka and Alaska. On Thursday, May 28, 2020 he was elevated to the rank of Archbishop.
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