International Orthodox Christian News

Chrysostomos reportedly was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and for several years was unable to carry out his duties on the east Mediterranean island.

In May 2006, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I — the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians — chaired a meeting of church elders that called for Chrysostomos' "honorary removal."

His successor, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, said death had come as "a relief" to Chrysostomos, who had lived his final days in seclusion in his room at the Archbishopric in Nicosia.

Chrysostomos' body will lie in state Sunday and Monday at Saint John's Cathedral, within Archbishopric grounds. A funeral is planned on Monday.

Chrysostomos was elevated to the church's senior position in 1977, when he succeeded Archbishop Makarios, the first post-independence president of Cyprus.

Paphos-born Chrysostomos joined the church as a young monk at the island's famed Kykkos monastery before earning degrees in philosophy and theology from the University of Athens.

After graduate studies in Britain, he worked as a teacher in Cyprus. Chrysostomos was ordained suffragan bishop in 1968 and bishop of Paphos in 1973.

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