Ieronymos II of Athens

Ieronymos was born in Oinofyta, Boeotia and is of Arvanite descent. Ieronymos holds degrees in archaeology, Byzantine studies, and theology from the University of Athens. He has undertaken postgraduate studies at the University of Graz, the University of Regensburg and LMU Munich. Following a stint as lector in Christian archaeology at the Athens Archaeological Society under professor Anastasios Orlandos, he taught as a philologist in Lycée Léonin and he was ordained deacon and then presbyter in the Orthodox Church in 1967. ==Titles==

The official title of the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece is: His Beatitude Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece; in Greek: ''' Η Αυτού Μακαριότης ο Αρχιεπίσκοπος Αθηνών και Πάσης Ελλάδος Ιερώνυμος Β' ''' ==Ecclesiastical affairs==

Ieronymos served as Protosyncellus of the Metropolis of Thebes and Livadeia, abbot of the monasteries of the Transfiguration of Sagmata and Hosios Loukas, and Secretary, later Archsecretary, of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. In 1981 he was elected Metropolitan Bishop of Thebes and Levadeia. In addition to his pastoral ministry, Ieronymos has been pursuing his work on Christian archaeology and has published two major textbooks: "Medieval Monuments of Euboea" (1970), and "Christian Boeotia" (2006). In 1998, he unsuccessfully contested the election to the throne of the archbishopric of Athens. receiving 45 out of 74 votes in a two-ballot process. He formally took office on 16 February 2008. ==Social and political views==

In 2012, Ieronymos criticized racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Golden Dawn party, saying that "The church loves all people, including those who are black, white or non-Christians." On 16 April 2016, he visited, together with Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the Mòria camp on the island of Lesbos, to call the attention of the world to the refugee crisis. On 16 February 2024, when gay marriage was legalized in Greece, he condemned the new law as a "new reality that seeks only to corrupt the homeland's social cohesion." ==Notes and references==

• Bintliff, John (2003), "The Ethnoarchaeology of a "Passive" Ethnicity: The Arvanites of Central Greece" in K.S. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis, eds., The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories, Lexington Books. . ==External links==