Archbishop Chrysanthus of Athens

Who was Archbishop Chrysanthus of Athens?

Archbishop Chrysanthus of Athens, born Charilaos Filippidis, was the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece between 1938 and 1941.

He was born in 1881 in Gratini, Thrace, then part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1903 he became a deacon and began his service in the Metropolis of Trebizond as a teacher at the Secondary School of the city, where he taught religious classes. He studied theology at the school of Halki then transferred to Lausanne in Switzerland and then to Leipzig in Germany. In 1913 he became the Metropolitan of Trebizond. He led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in the region and was therefore condemned to death by the Turkish forces in 1920.

He became archbishop of Athens in 1938 and held the post until he resigned in the aftermath of the German invasion of Greece, after refusing to swear-in the collaborationist government of Georgios Tsolakoglou. He was succeeded by Damaskinos. He died on 28 September 1949 in Athens.