The Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain is a Greek Orthodox authority established in 1922, the year of the Smyrna massacres. It covers the UK, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, the Irish Republic and Malta. It takes its name from one of the Seven Churches named in the Book of Revelation.
Known in classical times as a great centre of dyeing and the indigo trade, Thyateira was located in what is now the modern Turkish city of Akhisar. In Revelation, Thyateira is where Jezebel entices the Christians into sexual immorality. In the Acts of the Apostles, a woman called Lydia, ‘from the city of Thyateira and a dealer in purple cloth’, was baptised by St Paul and is honoured by the Orthodox Church as the first known European Christian. The ruins of Thyateira were explored by the Revd Jago Arundell during his pilgrimage to the Seven Churches.
Elected as head of the Orthodox in Britain in 1988, Archbishop Gregorios is a Cypriot born near the now Turkish-occupied city of Famagusta. In 1994 he established the only Orthodox church in Cornwall, a former Methodist chapel at Falmouth.
There are an estimated 300,000 Greek-speaking residents of the United Kingdom.