Gerasimos Palladas

Gerasimos Palladas (also known as Gerasimos II of Alexandria) was a Greek Orthodox monk, metropolitan, and theologian who served as Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria from 1688 to 1710 and is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was born in the village of Skopelos in the Pediada district of Crete, at a time when the island still formed part of the Venetian Kingdom of Candia. His family is reported in the tradition to have originated in Constantinople before settling on Crete. He entered monastic life at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity of Tzagarolon (Agia Triada Tzagarolon) near Chania, a house associated with the learned Cretan monastic culture of the seventeenth century. There he received the tonsure and acquired the education in theology and languages that later marked his reputation as a scholarly hierarch. A precise year of birth is not preserved in the sources that survive.

After his formation in Crete he served under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. He was consecrated bishop and appointed Metropolitan of Kastoria in Macedonia, and was later transferred to the more prominent see of Adrianople (Edirne) in Thrace. These offices placed him among the senior Orthodox hierarchs of the Ottoman Empire and prepared the way for his elevation to one of the ancient patriarchates. In 1688 he was elected Patriarch of Alexandria, succeeding Parthenius I. The Alexandrian see in this period ministered to a relatively small Orthodox flock in Egypt, under Ottoman rule and in the presence of Roman Catholic missions and European diplomatic interests. As patriarch he administered the church for more than two decades, a comparatively long tenure given the frequent changes that often affected the Eastern patriarchates. He is remembered as a man of learning who composed theological and catechetical writings in defense of Orthodox doctrine.

In 1710, citing advanced age, Gerasimos resigned the patriarchal throne. He withdrew to Mount Athos and settled at the Monastery of Vatopedi, where he spent his remaining years in monastic retirement. He died there in 1714 and was buried at the monastery. The Eastern Orthodox Church numbers him among the saints; his feast is observed on 15 June, and his memory is kept especially in the Patriarchate of Alexandria and on Mount Athos. He belongs to the succession of learned Cretan hierarchs who, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, moved from the monasteries of Crete into the highest offices of the Orthodox East. Many details of his early life and of particular episodes of his patriarchate remain sparsely documented, but the outline of his monastic formation, metropolitan service, long tenure at Alexandria, resignation, and Athonite end is firmly attested in the historical record.