Timothy I. Themeles

Patriarch Timothy I of Jerusalem

Timotheos I. Themeles (Τιμόθεος Α 'ο Θέμελης; * September 22, 1878 in Samos ; † December 18, 1955 in Jerusalem ) was Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem , theological publicist and writer.

The son of the priest Nikolaos Themeles and his wife Barbara received his school education on Samos. From 1898 he attended the Orthodox Theological College in the former Georgian Cross Monastery near Jerusalem. After graduating there, he continued his studies at Oxford . In 1906 he was ordained a monk and deacon , and in 1914 a priest . In 1917 he took over the office of Archigrammateus (a scholar in ancient languages ) of the "Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher" ("Hagiotaphites") and became the closest collaborator and confidante of Patriarch Damianos I.

Timotheos worked, among other things, as the head of the theological journal of the Patriarchate Nea Sion (Νέα Σιών) and founded the Orthodox orphanage in Bethlehem . In his magazine he published numerous studies on the history of pilgrimages to the Holy Land , on pilgrimage, on ecclesiastical and dogmatic topics and on the contemporary situation in Jerusalem and Palestine.

In 1921 he was elected and ordained Archbishop of the Jordan. As a representative of the Patriarch, he worked as spiritual and administrative head of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. On July 9, 1935, immediately after Damianos' death, he was elected as his successor, but was not recognized by the state authorities until 1939.

As patriarch, he defended the rights of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher and the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem. During World War II , he worried about the Greek refugees from Egypt and German-occupied Greece. After a long illness, he died in Jerusalem on December 18, 1955 at the age of 78.

literature

• MG Barbounes (Varvounis): Εργογραφικά του Σαμίου Πατριάρχη Ιεροσολύμων Τιμοθέου Α 'του Θέμελη (1878–1955). In: Γρηγόριος ο Παλαμάς 94 (2011) 647–663 (with list of scriptures)