The head of the Greek Orthodox community in Akko, Archimandrite Philotheos, 62, was killed last Thursday as a result of a scaffolding collapse while he was helping to renovate the community’s church on HaHagana Street in the Old City of Akko. Father Philotheos led the Church of Saint George in the city, and during his years in Akko he worked to facilitate meetings which would foster tolerance and encounters between residents and religious leaders of different religions in the city.
A Magen David Adom team that arrived at the scene took him to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, where his condition was initially defined as moderate. However, upon arrival at the hospital, he was taken into shock treatment and taken for scans, after which it was discovered that he suffered from multiple severe systemic injuries (head, chest and pelvis). During the treatment, the medical teams had to resuscitate him and anesthetize him. Subsequently, his condition deteriorated significantly, and a few hours later, medical teams were forced to pronounce him dead.
Akko Mayor Shimon Lankri eulogized Father Philotheos, saying: "He was a peace-loving cleric, a true friend and a lover of the city. I miss him greatly and am pained by his sudden passing. This is a terrible loss for the Greek Orthodox community in the city and I send them my condolences. May his memory be a blessing."
In the mosques of Akko, Father Philotheos was eulogized during Friday prayers.
The Greek Orthodox community in Akko numbers about 600 people, but the Church of Saint George, where Philotheos served, serves another 30,000 Greek Orthodox Christians living throughout the Galilee. In recent years, Father Philotheos was engaged in restoring the external appearance of the church, and among other things he used to decorate it with mosaics that he created from shells and glass.
Father Philotheos was born on the Greek island of Crete in 1962, and as a child he met the bishop of Jerusalem, who was visiting the island, and decided to make a pilgrimage to the Christian holy sites in Israel, where he stayed as a teenager for five years and was ordained to the priesthood. He returned to Crete, and was later accepted into the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and returned to Israel. He has served at the Church of Saint George in Akko for the past 15 years. Among other duties, he used to teach the children of the community at Sunday school, and even gave lessons in Byzantine music.
Over the years he learned Arabic and Hebrew and even a little Russian, in addition to Greek and English, which he has spoken since childhood. Throughout his years in Akko, he often met with the city's diverse communities, together with sheikhs and rabbis from the city, and also collaborated with the municipality. "We have good relations," he told the Israel21c magazine this January. "When we sit, we have good discussions, just not about theology. I know what I believe and I respect what they believe. Israelis should be proud. We are a mosaic of many communities serving one God."
This article was translated from Hebrew by Benji Sharp.
