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Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain

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The church was confiscated in 1684 and handed over to Huguenot refugees from France, much to the anger of the Greek Archbishop, who wrote and circulated a furious pamphlet which criticised this move and detailed how the English authorities had expropriated the community. He wrote that the community "never sold the said Church, nor received any sum for the building thereof". The church no longer stands but the dedicatory plaque that was embedded over the main entrance is now housed in the [[narthex]] of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St Sophia in Bayswater.
During the next 150 years, the community had to worship in the Imperial Russian Embassy. Finally, in 1837, an autonomous community was set up in Finsbury Park in London. The first new church was built in 1850, on London Street in the City. In 1877, the Church of St Sophia (the [[Holy Wisdom]]) was constructed in London, in order to cope with the growing influx of Orthodox immigrants to the United Kingdom. By the outbreak of the First World War, there were large Orthodox communities in London, Manchester, Cardiff and Liverpool, each focused on its own church.
The issue of how these significant communities were to be governed was not resolved until 1922, when the [[Ecumenical Patriarch]] [[Meletios IV (Metaxakis) of Constantinople|Meletios IV]] created the [[Diocese]] of Thyateira—named after the famous See of Thyateira in Asia Minor. Based in London, this diocese had [[jurisdiction]] over all Western Europe.
== Current situation ==
Today, there are over 100 Orthodox communities in the United Kingdom. The Archdiocese comes under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who in turn has authority over four [[bishop]]s and hundreds of [[priest]]s and [[deacon]]s. As is traditional within the Orthodox Church, the bishops have a considerable degree of [[autonomy]] within the Archdiocese.
 
== List of archbishops of Thyateira and Great Britain ==
* [[Germanos (Strenopoulos)]] (1922-1951)
* [[Athenagoras I (Kavadas) of Thyateira and Great Britain|Athenagoras (Kavadas)]] (1951-1962)
* [[Athenagoras (Kokkinakis) of Thyateira and Great Britain|Athenagoras (Kokkinakis)]] (1963-1979)
* [[Methodios (Fouyias) of Pisidia|Methodios (Fouyias)]] (1979-1988)
* [[Gregorios (Theocharous) of Thyateira and Great Britain|Gregorios (Theocharous)]] (1988-present)
==See also==
*[[Gregorios (Theocharous) of Thyateira and Great Britain]]*[[Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia]]*[[Chrysostomos (Mavroyiannopoulos) of Kyanea]]*[[Theodoritos (Polyzogopoulos) of Nazianzos]]
==External links==
*[http://thyateira.org.uk Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain]
*[http://orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/resources/hierarchs/constantinople/great_britain/current.htm#gregorios_arch_thyateira His Eminence Gregorios, Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain] from the Orthodox Research Institute
*[[w:List of Archbishops of Thyateira and Great Britain|"List of Archbishops of Thyateira and Great Britain"]] a Wikipedia list of (modern) archbishops
[[Category:Dioceses|Thyateira and Great Britain]][[Category:Jurisdictions|Thyateira and Great Britain]][[Category:Ecumenical Patriarchate Dioceses|Thyateira and Great Britain]][[Category:Orthodoxy in the United Kingdom|Thyateira and Great Britain]] [[fr:Archevêché orthodoxe grec de Thyatire et de Grande-Bretagne]]

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