His Beatitude, Archbishop Kallinikos of Athens and All Greece (whose secular name is Constantine Sarantopoulos, and whose parents are Eustathios and Eleni) was born on June 24/July 7, 1946 in Piraeus. He studied Economics in Athens and Medicine at the Aristotelian University in Thessaloniki.
From a young age he placed himself under the spiritual direction of the ever-memorable Archimandrite Kalliopios (Giannakoulopoulos), who later became the G.O.C. Metropolitan of Pentapolis. In 1971 he became a monk under the ever-memorable Elder; Metropolitan Kallistos of Corinth, by whom that same year he was ordained deacon and priest.
In 1979 he was ordained Metropolitan of Achaia and all the Peloponnese. He is the Church of the G.O.C.’s Exarch of Europe, while since 1985 he has been the Locum Tenens of the Ionian Islands and western Greece.
From 1998-2001 he was the President of the General Fund of the Church of the G.O.C. of Greece and under his presidency the cleansing of the economic fund of our Church, which had previously suffered from many hindrances, became achievable. In April of 2010 he was re-elected to the position of President of the General Fund.
As a Metropolitan, His Beatitude Archbishop Kallinikos was the Chief-Secretary of the Holy Synod and a member of the Synodal Committee for Dogmatic and Canonical Issues.
His Beatitude Archbishop Kallinikos’s nameday is on July 29/August 11, Martyr Kallinikos.
