Metropolitan Pavlos Menevissoglou (1935–2022)

Abstract

On 17 February 2022, the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced with sorrow but also with faith in the resurrection the falling asleep in the Lord of His Eminence Metropolitan Pavlos Menevissoglou, who had passed away the day before at the age of 87. The deceased was not only a prominent Hierarch of the Church of Constantinople, but also a prolific scholar of Ecclesiastical and Canon Law. The purpose of this obituary is to shed light on the significant contribution of the late Metropolitan to the study of the history of the Eastern Orthodox canonical tradition. Metropolitan Pavlos was born as Konstantinos Menevissoglou on 27 November 1935, in Makrohorion (Bakırköy) on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey, where he completed his elementary and the first two years of his secondary education. In 1950, he entered the Theological School of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the island of Halki (Heybeliada), one of the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara, where he studied for eight years: four years at high school level (1950–1954) and four years at the Theological Seminary (1954–1958). While he was in the second year of his theological studies, on Sunday 1 April 1956 he was ordained to the diaconate and received the ecclesiastical name Pavlos (Paul). In 1958, he graduated with the highest distinction from the Theological School of Halki, receiving the title of ‘Teacher of the Orthodox Christian Theology’, after successful submission and defence of his bachelor’s dissertation, entitled ‘The Monastic Life according to St Basil’.