—Archbishop Seraphim, 84, the head of the Orthodox Church in Greece since 1974, died April 10 in Athens of a viral infection. Seraphim opposed Greece’s military government between 1967 and 1974 and was a resistance fighter when that country was under Nazi occupation. Seraphim’s replacement, broadminded reformer Metropolitan Christodoulos, 59, was elected on April 28 by a group of senior clerics. One of his first challenges will be to heal a rift between the Greek Orthodox Church and ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, symbolic head of the world’s 350 million Orthodox Christians.
—Bent Moeller Nielsen, 56, director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency in Burundi, was shot to death by bandits April 22 as he drove through Bujumbura.
—Southern Baptist missionary Charles Hood, Jr., 44, was shot to death at his Bogota, Colombia, home on April 21. Two unknown assailants sped away on a motorcycle. Colombia has the world’s highest murder rate, with 2,700 people murdered in Bogota last year (CT, May 18, 1998, p. 40).
Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
