our metropolitan
His Eminence Metropolitan Myron
Metropolitan of New Zealand and Exarch of Oceania
His Eminence Metropolitan Myron (Ktistakis) was born in Athens in 1969. In 1996 he embraced the monastic life at the Holy Monastery of Agarathos in Crete. He was ordained Deacon in 1997 and Presbyter in 2001 by His Eminence Archbishop Timotheos of Crete.
He served the Church of Crete in various capacities, specifically he served as parish priest in various communities, acted as a member of the monastery’s council (Ηγουμενοσύμβουλος), represented the Archdiocese of Crete on synodal commissions, and from 2015 held the office of Ιεροκήρυξ (Archdiocesan Preacher).
Metropolitan Myron is a graduate of the Agricultural University of Athens, the Faculty of Theology of the University of Athens, and the Hellenic Open University (Department of Science and Technology). He also studied at the Medical School of the University of Crete and holds a postgraduate diploma from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania.
30 May 2018, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate unanimously elected him Metropolitan of New Zealand. He was ordained to the episcopacy by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on 11 June 2018 at the Patriarchal Church of St George, Phanar, and enthroned at the Annunciation of the Theotokos Cathedral in Wellington on 22 September 2018.
“…The Church, my brethren, is the very definition and name of unity! We, who have been baptized as Orthodox Christians, confess Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead; we bear upon our foreheads the seal of the Spirit; we regard and experience our holy Church as our Mother and nourisher; and we strive to live simply and humbly the life of the Gospel, that we may receive the fruit of the Spirit, as the Apostle Paul teaches us:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law.”
The purpose of the Church is to fill her members with divine grace: to transform human beings from earthly and temporal into heavenly and immortal; to make them saints, with the full knowledge of the One, True, and Triune God.
This is the desired fruit for those who recognize the purpose of their existence and strive to make it their way of life—for those who are not satisfied with daily routine, who are not content to serve purposes that are fleeting, material, and perishable, and for those who do not wish to live with the grave and non-existence as their horizon, but rather with immortality and communion with God within His grace.
Our Holy Church provides the spiritual means for the realization of this great aim: through the knowledge of our true self, the inner man; through liberation from matter and its purposes; through prayer, which offers a channel of communication with the realities of the spiritual world; and through participation in her holy mysteries.
It suffices that the person himself should will it. To live and to work with the thought in his mind that whatever he says and whatever he does has eternity as its horizon. To live, that is, timelessly. Not to be confined by his space and his matter. To live, that is, spiritually. To have the continual sense of the presence of God in his life, wherever he may be, whatever he may do. To live, that is, within Paradise itself—the existential state of love. This is the sole reason why I stand here today before you: that we may journey together on this wondrous, gifted pilgrimage of life which God has granted us; that we may help one another by using the gifts which God has given us; that we may see the face of God; that we may become saints; gods by grace; that we may experience heaven; that we may not compromise for anything less.
The Church sends me to reveal to you, as your Bishop, this love of God, this open embrace of the Crucified One! This perspective of Life. Our Metropolis shall therefore be a home for all, without exception, of the Christians of our Eparchy, and I, a humble father, brother, and fellow-traveller.
Once again, the Church shows us the way:
Whoever among you desires to be great, let him become your helper; and whoever wishes to be first among you, let him become your servant. Just as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ did, Who was not incarnate in order to enjoy human honors as a king, but in order to serve mankind and his needs.
I therefore make no distinction between good and bad among us, but only see beloved fellow-sufferers, whom I am bound in every way to assist in finding their healing and salvation—and in this very effort to discover also my own. Thus putting into practice the apostolic exhortation:
“Working together with Him… we entreat you” (2 Cor. 6:1).
That we may ever work together and journey together,
“with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:2–3).
…”
