07 — Bishop and Pastor

In 1982 Ware was consecrated titular Bishop of Diokleia, an auxiliary in the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain; in 2007 the see was raised to a metropolis and he with it. He never governed a diocese. What he did instead was serve one Oxford parish for thirty-five years and carry the Orthodox side of the Anglican dialogue for a decade. This section covers both.

Tradition: Orthodox (Britain; Ecumenical Patriarchate)

What This Section Covers

• Bishop of Diokleia — the consecration of 1982, the titular see, the elevation of 2007, the Oxford parish, the shape of an episcopate without a diocese, and the repose of 2022.
• The Ecumenical Work — the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, the editorships, the Anglican–Orthodox commission and its agreed statements, the Lambeth Cross, and the intra-Orthodox criticism that ecumenical work attracts.

The Bare Facts

• 1966–2001 — founding priest of the Greek Orthodox parish of the Holy Trinity, Oxford (Greek Orthodox Community of the Holy Trinity, Oxford).
• 1982 — consecrated titular Bishop of Diokleia (a see in Phrygia), auxiliary in the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Widely described as the first Englishman consecrated an Orthodox bishop since the eleventh-century schism.
• 30 March 2007 — the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate raised Diokleia to a titular metropolis and Kallistos to Metropolitan (OrthodoxWiki; Orthodox Times).
• Anglican–Orthodox dialogue — Orthodox Co-Chair of the International Commission for Anglican–Orthodox Theological Dialogue, appointed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew; the commission’s own statement gives 2009–2016 (ICAOTD statement, 26 August 2022).
• 2017 — awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the Archbishop of Canterbury “for his outstanding contribution to Anglican–Orthodox theological dialogue” (Orthodox Times, 24 August 2022).
• 24 August 2022 — reposed at home in Oxford, aged 87; buried at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford, 1 September 2022.

An Episcopate of an Unusual Kind

Ware’s episcopate has to be described accurately or it will be overstated in one direction and understated in the other.

He was never a diocesan bishop. Diokleia is a titular see — an ancient see in Phrygia with no living flock — and from 1982 to 2022 he was an auxiliary of Thyateira. He did not govern, did not run a chancery, did not ordain a clergy of his own, and did not sit as a ruling hierarch at the pan-Orthodox tables where jurisdictional questions are decided. In this he differed sharply from the other great twentieth-century figure of British Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh, who actually ruled a diocese.

And yet the episcopal office was not ornamental. It gave him standing to represent Orthodoxy in international dialogue, which he did for a decade at the highest level available; it made him, for two generations of English-speaking converts, the bishop they had actually heard of; and it placed his personal theological opinions in a different category from a layman’s, which is exactly the ground on which his critics later objected to them (see Section 08).

The pastoral center of gravity was lower down. For thirty-five years he was the parish priest of a single Greek community in Oxford, which he had been sent to found in 1966 and which he served until his retirement from the Spalding post in 2001 (Greek Orthodox Community of the Holy Trinity, Oxford). That is the fact the obituaries tend to bury, and it is the one his parishioners remembered.

See Also

• Section 03 — Patmos — the tonsure without which none of these offices was possible
• Section 04 — Oxford and the Teaching Life — the parallel career
• Section 08 — The Contested Questions — where the ecumenical work becomes contested
• Section 09 — Legacy and Assessment — the weighing
• Ecumenism Debate — the repository’s treatment of the underlying question

References

• Greek Orthodox Community of the Holy Trinity, Oxford. “Metropolitan Kallistos (1934–2022).” (Founding priest, 1966–2001; consecration 1982.)
• OrthodoxWiki. “Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia.” (Titular Bishop of Diokleia 1982; elevation to titular Metropolitan, 30 March 2007.)
• Orthodox Times. “Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia fell asleep in the Lord,” 24 August 2022. (Diokleia in Phrygia; auxiliary of Thyateira; 30 March 2007 elevation; Lambeth Cross 2017.)
• International Commission for Anglican–Orthodox Theological Dialogue. Statement following the death of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, 26 August 2022. (Co-Chair 2009–2016; the 2015 agreed statement.)
• Wikipedia. “Kallistos Ware.” (Death at Oxford 24 August 2022; burial at Wolvercote Cemetery, 1 September 2022.)