He was born on the Greek island of Chios on 14 August 1923. He became a monk in 1943 and was renamed Diodoros. Three years later he became a priest, then the titular archbishop of the archdiocese of Hierapolis in Phrygia in 1965. As the Metropolitan of Hierapolis, he served in Amman, Jordan, until 1980, as Patriarchal Exarch, the representative of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He was then raised to the Patriarchate.[2]
His time in office had some controversies, mainly due to his lack of fluent Arabic and reports of sales and long-term leases of church properties.[3]
He met Pope John Paul II in early 2000;[4] in December 2000 he died in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, of complications linked to diabetes. At the time of his death, there were fewer than 100,000 Greek Orthodox Christians across Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.[3][5]
References
^"Apostolikí Diadochí" Ἀποστολική Διαδοχή [Apostolic Succession]. Πατριαρχείοv Ιεροσολύμων – Επίσημη Πύλη Ειδησεογραφίας | Patriarchate of Jerusalem – Official News Portal (in Greek).
