by Athanasios N. Papathanasiou | български | Română | Русский | Српски

On January 17, 2022, a deaconess of the Orthodox Church was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Church Triumphant. Maria Spyropoulou, deaconess of the missionary Church of Korea, fell asleep after an 89-year journey to earth.

Born February 6, 1933 in Greece, she studied Pedagogics in Athens (1952-54) and worked as a teacher. She studied theology and journalism in France (1963-66) and collaborated with the magazine Contacts of the Orthodox Theological Institute of Saint Sergius in Paris. She then went to Bucharest (1968-70), where she attended courses on the Romanian language and theology.

Returning to Greece, she worked on the Standing Synodal Committee and at the Inter-Orthodox Center of Athens, responsible for relations with the Church of Romania.

Ultimately, however, the European context played a small role for Maria, who already felt that mission was (as she told us) “a madness”—a stretching forth of the wings to the ends of the earth!