On 18 September, Fr Theodore Kodidis, 65, was ordained Archbishop of Athens and Apostolic Administrator of Rhodes. The ordination took place in the Cathedral of Saint Denis the Areopagite in Athens, in the presence of the Greek bishops, Orthodox priests, the Mayor of Athens and two government representatives: the Minister of Education and the Minister of Development.

The Catholic Church in Athens is about 200,000 Catholics of which only 20% are Greek. Over the last few decades, many foreign Catholics have settled in Greece: Albanians, first of all, who were oppressed for a long time by an atheistic communist regime, then Poles from the 1980s onwards, then Filipinos, who are very much appreciated in the service of the houses, expatriates, Italians, Germans, English, French and finally, recently, many refugees who gather at Saint Theresa's, an English- and French-speaking catholic community.

Bishop Kodidis has many assets to take up the challenge of this diversity as he speaks not only Greek but also Italian, French and English and his experiences of living abroad will certainly help him to understand the diversity of situations he will discover in his diocese. Theodore Kodidis studied in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), at the Centre Sèvres (Paris) and in Rome. He was director of the magazine Open Horizons.

Read the portrait of Fr. Kodidis