Date of Consecration:

July 9, 2005

Date of Election:

June 15, 2005

Date of Ordination to the Priesthood:

July 9, 1963

Date of Ordination to the Diaconate:

Decmber 9, 1962

Date of Monastic Tonsure:

December 8, 1962

Date of Birth:

1938

Full Name:

Adamantios Tsoukos

BIOGRAPHY:

The Metropolitan of New Zealand, His Eminence Amfilochios (Adamantios Tsoukos), was born in 1938 in Lardo on the island of Rhodes, which is part of the Dodecanese Islands. He attended the Patmiada Church School and in 1959 he entered the Theological School of Halki.

On 8 December 1962, he was tonsured a monk in the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Theological School. The next day he was ordained a deacon by Metropolitan Maximos of Stavroupoleos. The same Metropolitan then ordained him a Priest on 9 July 1963. The same year he finished theological school with the final paper entitled: "Dogmatic teacher of Koraniou."

From 1964 to 1968 he served the Holy Monastery of Evangelismos in Patmos near the Holy Elder Amfilochios Makri of the Dodecanese Islands. Then in 1969, he was appointed a teacher in the Patmiada Church School.

In 1972 he went to Africa to serve as a missionary in Kenya, Tanzania and Zaire. While there he was given the title of Archimandrite by the Patriarch of Alexandria Nicholas in the Church of Evangelismos in Louboubasi. In 1978 when he returned to Patimada.

In 1989 he came to Rhodes, at the invitation of the Metropolitan of Rhodes, His Eminence Apostolos, as a preacher. Then on 22 May 1990, he was elected Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Tharri. on 15 June 2005 he was elected a Bishop by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and on 9 July he was consecrated by Metropolitan Kyrillos of Rhodes in the Evangelismos Cathedral in Rhodes. Most recently he was elected as Metropolitan of New Zealand on 13 October 2005.