Watch live now His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America at his first visit to Saint Thomas Greek Orthodox Church in Cherry Hill, NJ, celebrating the Divine Liturgy.

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis) of America, Most Honorable Exarch of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is the eighth Archbishop of America elected since the establishment of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in 1922.

Ioannis Lambriniadis was born and raised in Istanbul′s Bakırköy district (Makrohori), Turkey.

He attended the Urban School of Makrochori in Istanbul before attending high school in Athens and then the School of Pastoral and Social Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1987-1988. While living in Turkey, he also served in the Turkish Military.

Later, he studied at the Department of Pastoral Theology, Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, from which he graduated in 1991. In 1993, he finished his postgraduate studies at the Philosophical School of the University of Bonn, Germany.

In 1994, he was ordained deacon at the Patriarchal Cathedral in Istanbul and was appointed as the Codecographer of the Holy and Sacred Synod.

“In 1995, he was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.” In 1996–1997, he studied at the Theological School of St. John the Damascene in Balamand, Lebanon.

In 2004, he was invited to Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, where he taught as a visiting professor for one semester.

In March 2005, at the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew proposal, he was appointed to the position of Chief Secretary and was ordained to the priesthood by the Ecumenical Patriarch.

He was installed as the Metropolitan of Bursa on 20 March 2011. In August of the same year, he was appointed Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity on Heybeliada.

Since 2011, Elpidophoros has undertaken associate professor’s duties at Aristotle University’s Department of Pastoral and Social Theology, teaching Symbolics, Interorthodox – InterChristian Relations, and Ecumenical Movement.

On 11 May 2019, he was elected by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as the next Archbishop of America to succeed Archbishop Demetrios. He was enthroned on 22 June 2019.