top

GOARCH - May 19, 1998
OFFICIAL NEWS

Ecumenical Patriarchate elects two new auxiliary Bishops

New York, NY - His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has informed His Eminence Archbishop Spyridon, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America of the election of two new bishops by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Named as auxiliary bishops to Archbishop Spyridon were Bishop-elect George (Papaioannou) of Komanon and Bishop-elect Dimitrios (Couchell) of Xanthos.

The Rev. Protopresbyter Papaioannou (65), a native of Prodromos, Thebes(Greece), has been a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese since 1958, the last 27 years at St. George Church, Bethesda,MD. A 1957 graduate of the Theological School of Halki, he pursued graduate studies in Church History at Boston University and received his Doctor of Theology Degree in 1976. His dissertation was entitled:Patriarch Athenagoras and the Greek Orthodox Church of America. A widower, Father George and his late Presvytera Maria have three married daughters and six grandchildren.

The Very Rev. Archimandrite Couchell (60), a native of Spartanburg, SC, attended Northwestern University and graduated from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in 1963. He has been executive director of the St. Photios Foundation in St. Augustine,FL since 1981 and executive director of the Orthodox Christian Mission Center since 1984. Father Couchell began working for the the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in 1964, initiating the campus ministry program. He went on to serve as Executive Secretary of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA); president of SYNDESMOS, the World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth Organizations, and from 1971-81 was English editor of the Orthodox Observer.

Details regarding their consecrations and assignments will be forthcoming.

[ GOARCH
  www.goarch.org/-/ecumenical-patriarchate-elects-two-new-auxiliary-bishops
  May 19, 1998 ]