wfn.org | Archimandrite Evangelos Kourounis Elected Metropolitan of New

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NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
April 12, 2003

Contact:
Nikki Stephanopoulos

ARCHIMANDRITE EVANGELOS KOUROUNIS ELECTED METROPOLITAN OF NEW JERSEY

NEW YORK - The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of 
Constantinople elected unanimously today the Very Reverend Archimandrite 
Evangelos Kourounis as Metropolitan of New Jersey.

The Metropolitan-elect was the first of three candidates chosen for the see 
of the Metropolis of New Jersey whose names were recently submitted to the 
Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate by the Holy Eparchial 
Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, as 
soon as he received the official letter from the Ecumenical Patriarch, 
offered the following comments: "I congratulate Metropolitan-elect 
Evangelos, whom I have known for many years, initially as a student of our 
Holy Cross Theological School and then as a clergyman of our Holy 
Archdiocese of America. During all these years and frequently under 
challenging conditions, the Metropolitan-elect has demonstrated 
wholehearted devotion to God, unyielding adherence to the dogmas, the 
canons and the ethos of the Church, zeal for the dissemination of the 
Gospel, faithfulness to our Hellenic cultural heritage and our Orthodox 
traditions and remarkable liturgical expertise. I am sure that by the grace 
and strength from God, the new Metropolitan of New Jersey of the Holy 
Archdiocese of America will prove to be a true imitator of our Good 
Shepherd Jesus Christ and will lead the devoted flock of his God-saved 
Metropolis to 'springs of living water' (Rev.7: 17)."

The Very Reverend Archimandrite Evangelos Kourounis has been the dean of 
the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St. Demetrios in Astoria, NY for the last 
two years.  He was born in New York in 1961 to immigrant parents from the 
Greek Island of Kalymnos of the Dodecanese. He attended the Greek-American 
day schools of St. Eleftherios and St. Spyridon in New York. He enrolled in 
Hellenic College from which he graduated in 1983.  He then continued his 
graduate studies at Holy Cross School of Theology and graduated in 1986 
with a Masters of Divinity.  He also attended, in 1988, the Ecumenical 
Institute of Bossey of the University of Geneva (Switzerland) from which he 
received a Certificate in Ecumenical Studies.

He was ordained to the deaconate February 1, 1987 and to the priesthood on 
July 30, 1989 by His Grace Bishop Philotheos of Meloa. On March 30, 1991 
Archbishop Iakovos elevated him to the rank Archimandrite.

He served as deacon to the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate 
in Chambesy, Geneva-Switzerland in 1987-88 and served as deacon to 
Archbishop Iakovos and Assistant Director of Archives in 1988-89. From 
August 1989 until September of 1993 he served as assistant priest to the 
Dean of St. Demetrios Cathedral in Astoria, NY. He was then named 
Chancellor of the Diocese of New Jersey, a post at which he served until 
March of 1999. He served as the Director of the Registry of the Greek 
Orthodox Archdiocese from 1996 to 2001 and as President of the Spiritual 
Court of the Archdiocesan District from 1996 until the present.

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