Metropolitan Seraphim of Kastoria, who tested positive for COVID-19 in early December, has passed away.
The 61-year-old metropolitan had been transferred to 424 General Military Hospital and on December 20 he was placed in critical care and intubated.
The funeral for the late hierarch will take place at the Metropolitan Church of the Dormition of Virgin Mary in Kastoria tomorrow, December 30, at 11:00am local time and will be streamed live on the Metropolis’ YouTube Channel.
Metropolitan David of Grevena has been appointed as the locum tenens for the Metropolis of Kastoria, also called “topotiritis” in Greece, until Greece’s Holy Synod elects a new metropolitan to take over the Metropolis.
The Metropolitan of Kastoria Serafeim (born Ioannis Papakostas) was born in 1959 in Agnantero, Karditsa. He studied at the Rizareio School of Athens and then at the Higher Ecclesiastical School (1983), and then studied at the Theological School of Athens (1987). He was ordained a deacon in 1983 and a presbyter in 1987.
Seraphim is the second Greek Orthodox hierarch to succumb to the virus. Metropolitan Ioannis of Lagadas, Litis and Rentinis, a region in northern Greece, died in November.
