Antonio (de Rosso) of Ravenna

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Metropolitan Antonio (de Rosso) (February 8, 1941 – February 20, 2009) was the head of the formerly-Old Calendarist Chiesa Ortodossa in Italia ("Orthodox Church in Italy") and the Metropolitan of Ravenna and Italy.

Life

Metr. Antonio was born in 1941 in Farra di Soligo (near Treviso, Veneto). In 1968 he was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1986, after his conversion to Orthodoxy he was named bishop of Aprilia and Latium under the jurisdiction of Metr. Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, a leader of the Greek Old Calendarists movement. In 1991 he founded the Orthodox Church in Italy. In 1993 Bp. Antonio joined the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, and in 1995 was enthroned bishop of Ravenna and Italy. After 1997 the Chiesa Ortodossa in Italia remained linked with Patriarch Pimen's Bulgarian Alternative Synod and Bp. Antonio became Metropolitan of Ravenna and Italy. In the same year Metr. Antonio became a full member of Pimen's Holy Synod, as the head of the autonomous Orthodox Church in Italy.

Metr. Antonio's apostolic succession derives from Metr. Cyprian (Old Calendarist). In 1993 he introduced the reformed Julian calendar into the Orthodox Church in Italy, thus ending any association with the Old Calendarist movement.

He died on February 20, 2009, after a long illness.

Source

• Antonio De Rosso (Wikipedia)

External link

• Ortodossia Italiana (Italian)