The Most Reverend Kallistos (Ware), Metropolitan of Diokleia (1934-2022). Born Timothy Ware in Bath, Somerset, England). He was an auxiliary bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Great Britain. Metropolitan Kallistos was educated at Westminster School (to which he had won a scholarship) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took a Double First in Classics as well as reading Theology.
In 1958, at the age of 24, he embraced the Orthodox Christian faith (having been raised Anglican), traveling subsequently throughout Greece, spending a great deal of time at the Monastery of St. John the Theologian in Patmos. He also frequented other major centres of Orthodoxy such as Jerusalem and Mount Athos.
In 1966, he was ordained to the priesthood and was tonsured as a monk, receiving the name Kallistos. In the same year, he became a lecturer at Oxford, teaching Eastern Orthodox Studies, a position which he held for 35 years until his retirement. In 1970, he was appointed to a Fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford, and in
1982, he was consecrated to the episcopacy as an auxiliary bishop with the title Bishop of Diokleia, appointed to serve as the assistant to the bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. Despite his elevation, Bishop Kallistos remained in Oxford and carried on his duties both as the parish priest of the Oxford Greek Orthodox community and as a lecturer at the University.
After his retirement in 2001, Met. Kallistos continued to publish and to give lectures on Orthodox Christianity, travelling widely. Until recently, he was the chairman of the board of directors of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge. He was also the chairman of the group Friends of Orthodoxy on Iona and Chairman of the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue.
On 31st March 2007 he was elevated to Metropolitan. Met. Kallistos is perhaps best known as the author of the book The Orthodox Church, published when he was a layman in 1963 and subsequently revised several times. More recently, he produced a companion volume, The Orthodox Way. But his most substantial publications have emerged from his translation work. Together with G. E. Palmer and Philip Sherrard), he undertook to translate the Philokalia (four volumes of five published to date); and with Mother Mary he produced the Lenten Triodion and Festal Menaion.
He was a prolific writer and in great demand from Orthodox and non-Orthodox organisations. We were blessed to have him as our Founding Patron, and he shall ever remain so. We continue to ask for his continued support and encouragement, only this time he will assuredly give it from a far better place – amongst the Saints and Angels.