Meletios Metaxakis

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Metropolitan of Athens Meletios Metaxakis arrived in America on October 20, 1918, and soon established the Synodical Council setting the pattern for centralized Church administration.

In effect, this was the first step towards the establishment of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, which was incorporated in 1921, and officially recognized by the State of New York in 1922.

When Meletios was elected Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios IV in January, 1922, one of his first official decrees on March 1st of that year was to restore the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This was formalized on May 11, 1922 when Patriarch Meletios declared the Church of America as an Archdiocese appointing the Rt. Rev. Alexander Titular Bishop of Rodostolon , as his Patriarchal Exarch here.