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Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Italy
Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Italy
Orthodox
	Cathedral church of Saint George of the Greeks in Venice
Location
Country	Italy and San Marino
Headquarters	Venice
Statistics
Parishes	80
Information
Denomination	Eastern Orthodox
Rite	Byzantine Rite
Established	1991
Cathedral	San Giorgio dei Greci
Secular priests	50
Language	Greek and Italian
Current leadership
Parent church	Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
Governance	Episcopal
Patriarch	Bartholomew I of Constantinople
Metropolitan	Polykarpos Stavropoulos
Auxiliary Bishops	Bishop Georgios of Krateas; Bishop Dionysios of Kotieou; Bishop Athenagoras of Thermae;
Vicar General	Archimandrite Vissarion Vakaros
Website
	ortodossia.it/

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy (and Malta from 2005^{[citation needed]} until the creation of the Exarchate of Malta in 2021),^[1] officially the Sacred Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Exarchate of Southern Europe (Italian: Sacra Arcidiocesi Ortodossa d'Italia ed Esarcato per l'Europa Meridionale), is a diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople with its see in Venice.^[2] The diocese was created in 1991.

The current archbishop and exarch is Polykarpos Stavropoulos.^[3]

History

The Italo-Byzantine Monastery of St Mary of Grottaferrata, 20 kilometers south of Rome, was founded by Saint Nilus the Younger in 1004.^[4]

After the fall of Constantinople, many Greeks sought refuge in Italy and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople appointed a series of Metropolitans, who resided in Venice from 1537 to 1797. But it was not until 1539 that the Greek community of Venice was authorised to begin building the church of San Giorgio dei Greci which still stands in the centre of the city on the canal known as the Rio dei Greci [it].^[5] The church was completed in 1573 and is the oldest of the churches of the Greek diaspora in western Europe.^[6]

In 1557, Venice's Greek community had nominated Pachomios, bishop of Zante and Cephalonia, to act in their church as bishop, which he apparently did for one year only.^[7] In 1577 a Greek Orthodox archbishop resided in Venice who was recognized him as the religious head of the Greek Orthodox community in Venice, though with the non-Venetian title of Archbishop of Philadelphia.^[8]