Kallinikos of Edessa

Saint Kallinikos of Edessa (1919-1984), in the world Dimitrios Poulos, was metropolitan of Edessa, Pella and Almopia, in the Church of Greece, from 1967 to 1984. He was numbered among the saints by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 23 June 2020. He is commemorated on 8 August, the day after his repose.

Beginnings

He was born on 26 January 1919 at Sitaralona in Aetolia-⁠Acarnania, to a poor family. He studied theology at the Theological School of the University of Athens. He was ordained deacon and priest in 1957 by his half-⁠brother, Metropolitan Constantine of Didymoteichon (Poulos). He served as secretary and lay preacher, then protosyncellus, of the metropolis of Aetolia and Acarnania. As a lay preacher he saw to it that the word of God reached even the most remote village, and he was the chief founder of the Radio of Messolonghi, whose range went beyond the limits of the city and the metropolis.

Metropolitan of Edessa

On 25 June 1967 he was consecrated metropolitan of Edessa, Pella and Almopia, in the church of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite in Athens, by Metropolitan Dionysius of Trikala and Stagoi, with Metropolitans Meletios of Kythira, Constantius of Dedeagatch, Synesios of Kassandreia and Theoklitos of Aetolia and Acarnania. Three days before, the Holy Synod had attached to the metropolis of Edessa the district of Almopia, detached from the metropolis of Florina. After the resignation in 1973 of Archbishop Hieronymos Kotsonis, Metropolitan Seraphim of Ioannina was elected archbishop in 1974. On 28 March 1974 the canonical Synod accepted, as a measure of economy, the election of twenty of the twenty-⁠nine hierarchs elected in the "Hieronymian" period, among them Kallinikos of Edessa, who thus continued his ministry as a member of the canonical hierarchy presided over by Seraphim. His brother, Constantine of Didymoteichon, canonically elected in 1957, was declared deposed in July 1974, with eleven others, for joining the opposing metropolitans.

Metropolitan Kallinikos took care for the training of the clergy, organizing theological conferences and clergy gatherings. He travelled constantly to all the parishes and cultivated preaching and confession. He brought to light the local saints, the new martyr Chryse and the martyr Vassa of Edessa with her three sons. On his initiative a boarding house for young students and a home for the elderly were founded. He restored the monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God at Lakka and founded the hermitage of Saint Gregory Palamas at Koufalia and many churches.

Shepherd of the young

Like the Great High Priest Jesus Christ, whom he imitated, the saint let the children come to him already in the years when he was a lay preacher. Dimitrios Poulos, "Mitsos", as everyone called him from childhood, showed particular interest in the catechesis, care and spiritual progress of the young. In the years as secretary in Aetolia-⁠Acarnania, from 1942 to 1946, and then in the army (1946-1949), his first concern was the catechesis of the young, of pupils and soldiers, and the support of families with small children; he knew from his mother how hard it is to raise them and sympathized with women raising babies. As a priest he helped found catechism schools, visited primary schools and organized liturgies for pupils, convinced that what is imprinted on a person's memory and heart in childhood is never erased.

As metropolitan he did not rest on earlier successes but intensified them: he founded a boarding house for boys, housed the girls who attended gymnasium and lyceum in Edessa, opened a meeting place for young girls and a camp, so that the children would be raised in a spirit of brotherhood. He supported seminarians and students much and, remembering his own difficulties, always helped the poorest. Remembering his own childhood beside his priest grandfather, he took care that children were properly catechized and their faith founded at a young age. To all he urged confession, as the "medicine for illnesses".

Repose and canonization

He reposed in Athens on 7 August 1984 and was buried, at his wish, in the municipal cemetery of Edessa, to be near the people. The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided the canonization of Metropolitan Kallinikos on 23 June 2020, his memory being kept on 8 August. On 28 November 2021 a church in his honour was consecrated in the metropolis of Edessa.