The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate unanimously elected Metropolitan Nikitas of Dardanelles as the new Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain, succeeding Archbishop Gregorios who retired as of Wednesday June 12, 2019.
Metropolitan Nikitas is the Director of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkeley, California.
Metropolitan Nikitas (Lulias) of Dardanelles, Exarch of All Hellespont, was born in Tampa, Florida, United States in 1955.
He studied at the University of Florida, from which he received his degree in Religion (1976).
He then attended the Theological School of the Holy Cross of Boston, where he graduated in 1980 and then completed postgraduate studies at the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1982).
He was ordained a Deacon in 1985 by Archbishop Jacob of America and in the same year he became a Priest.
On December 2, 1996, he was unanimously elected as Metropolitan of Hong Kong and ordained on the 14th of the same month at the Patriarchal Church of St. George.
His enthronement took place at St. Luca Cathedral in Hong Kong on January 12, 1997 and became the first regular priest of the newly-established Hong Kong Metropolis, and then he was appointed at the Dardanelles Metropolis in 2007.
His enthronement will be scheduled to take place by the end of July at St. Sophia Cathedral in London.
Photography courtesy of National Herald / Pr. Michael State
