Kallistos Ware (born Timothy Richard Ware, 11 September 1934 – 24 August 2022) was an English bishop and theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church. From 1982, he held the titular bishopric of Diokleia in Phrygia, later made a titular metropolitan bishopric in 2007, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. He was one of the best-known modern Eastern Orthodox hierarchs and theologians. From 1966 to 2001, he was Spalding Lecturer of Eastern Orthodox Studies at the University of Oxford.

Early life and ordination

Born Timothy Richard Ware on 11 September 1934 to an Anglican family in Bath, Somerset, England, he was educated at Westminster School in London (to which he had won a King's Scholarship) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took a double first in classics as well as reading theology. On 14 April 1958, at the age of 24, he converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church. He described his first contacts with Orthodoxy and the growing attraction of the Eastern Orthodox Church in an autobiographical text entitled "My Journey to the Orthodox Church". While still a layman, he spent six months in Canada at a monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Thoroughly conversant in modern Greek, Ware became an Eastern Orthodox monk at the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Patmos, Greece. He also frequented other major centres of Orthodoxy, such as Jerusalem and Mount Athos. In 1966, he was ordained to the priesthood within the Ecumenical Patriarchate and was tonsured as a monk, receiving the name "Kallistos".

Professional and ecclesiastical life

In 1966, Ware became Spalding Lecturer at the University of Oxford in Eastern Orthodox studies, a position he held for 35 years until his retirement. In 1970, he was appointed to a fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1982, he was consecrated to the episcopate as an auxiliary bishop with the title Bishop of Diokleia (in Phrygia) in the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Following his consecration, Ware continued to teach at the University of Oxford and served in the Greek Orthodox parish in Oxford. From his retirement in 2001, Ware had continued to publish and to give lectures on Orthodox Christianity. He served as chairman of the board of directors of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, and was chairman of the Friends of Orthodoxy on Iona (Scotland) and of the Friends of Mount Athos. On 30 March 2007, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elevated the Diocese of Diokleia in Phrygia to a titular metropolitan diocese and Ware to the rank of metropolitan. In 2017, Ware was awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the Archbishop of Canterbury "for his outstanding contribution to Anglican–Orthodox theological dialogue".

Death

In August 2022, Ware's caregivers reported he was in critical condition and "approaching the end of his life". He died at home in Oxford in the early hours of 24 August 2022 at age 87.

Publications

Ware was a prolific author and lecturer. He authored or edited over a dozen books, numerous articles in a wide range of periodicals, and essays in books on many subjects, as well as providing prefaces, forewords, or introductions to many other books. He is perhaps best known as the author of The Orthodox Church, published when he was a layman in 1963 and subsequently revised several times. In 1979, he produced a companion volume, The Orthodox Way. He collaborated in the translation and publication of major Orthodox ascetic and liturgical texts. Together with G. E. H. Palmer and Philip Sherrard, he translated the Philokalia; and with Mother Mary, he produced the Lenten Triodion and Festal Menaion. St Vladimir's Seminary Press published a Festschrift in his honour in 2003: Abba, The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West, Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, eds. John Behr, Andrew Louth, Dimitri Conomos (New York: SVS Press, 2003).

Academic honors

For his outstanding contributions to Orthodox theology, Metropolitan Kallistos was awarded honorary doctorates from Lawrence University of Wisconsin (2001), St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (2011), Cluj-Napoca University, the Ss Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute (2014), the University of Belgrade, the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, and New Georgian University (2018).

Books

Selected articles

Selected lectures