Apostolidis, Michael

Apostolidis, Michael a theologian and prelate of the Greek church, born toward the close of the 18th century on the island of Crete, died at Athens on Aug. 2, 1862. He studied theology, plilosophy, and languages at the German Universities, and became soon after professor at a Greek school at Trieste. When Prince Otho of Bavaria was designated as king of Greece, Apostolidis was called to Munich to instruct him in Greek. Having arrived with King Otho in Greece, he became lecturer on church history and ethics at an ecclesiastical school at Athens, and, in 1837, professor of theology at the University of Athens. When the independence of the Church of Greece had been declared, Apostolidis was sent to Petersburg to establish a closer connection between the Church of Russia and that of Greece. On his return he was appointed archbishop of Patras. Subsequently he became archbishop of Athens and president of the Synod, which position he retained until his death. Apostolidis wrote, besides several contributions to the Greek periodical Λόγιος ῾Ερμῆς, of Vienna, a manual of Christian ethics, entitled Τῆς κατὰ Χριστὸν ἠθικῆς πραγματεία (Athens, 1847), first in the ancient Greek, but subsequently also in modern Greek. — Unsere Zeit, 7, 398, 399.