The entire GTU community is invited to a welcome reception for the new Director at the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute (PAOI), Metropolitan Tarasios Anton. The reception will be on February 25th from 4-6pm at the Institute (2309 Hearst Avenue).
Biographical Information about Metropolitan Tarasios Anton:
Metr. Tarasios was born Peter (Panayiotis) C. Anton in Gary, Indiana, in 1956 to Peter and Angela Anton. The family moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1960, and young Peter grew up in the Church of St. Sophia in San Antonio. He studied at Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, as well as Trinity University in San Antonio, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (M.A. in Theology 1983), the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, and the Pontifical School of Paleography and Archives at the Vatican.
He served as a lay assistant at St. Nicholas' church in St. Louis, Missouri, beginning in 1980, and eight years later became administrative assistant in the Diocese of Atlanta.
In 1990, Peter became the first American to serve at the Patriarchal court in Constantinople, when he was ordained to the diaconate by Metr. Bartholemew of Chalcedon. He advanced through the ranks of the patriarchate, eventually being appointed as Grand Archdeacon of the Patriarchate. In this role he oversaw the operation of the Patriarchal Church of St. George (the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch), as well as various functions of the Archdiocese of Constantinople. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 27, 2001, in Prokopi (present day Urgup, Turkey) and to the episcopate on June 3 in Constantinople. He was enthroned in Buenos Aires on July 14, 2001.
Metr. Tarasios speaks English, Greek, Spanish, Italian, and French, and has some reading knowledge of Portuguese.
He established close ties with the inter-religious communities primarily of Buenos Aires but also throughout the South American continent, except for Colombia and Venezuela.
On November 29, 2019, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected Metr. Tarasios to the Metropolitanate of Rhodopolis , Primate and Exarch of Lazica and at the same time recommended his assignment to the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkeley, California.