† Maximos of Switzerland

His Eminence Metropolitan Maximos of Switzerland, Most Honorable and Exarch of Europe (born Georgios Pothos) was born in Argos, Greece, on 19 September 1966. A graduate of the Faculty of Theology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1988), he settled in Switzerland and served at the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, Geneva, for eight years.

He was ordained deacon in 1990 and priest in 1993 by Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland (later of Adrianople). He served as Chancellor (Protosyngellos) of the Metropolis from 1997 until 2018. For twenty-five years he tended to the liturgical needs of communities in Bern, Olten, and Lugano that lacked permanent priests.

On 10 July 2018 he was elected Metropolitan of Switzerland unanimously by the Holy Synod, consecrated bishop on 22 July at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St George in the Phanar by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. He was enthroned in Geneva on 18 August 2018.

Name day: 21 January