Hamilcar Spyridonos Alivizatos

Nationality

Greece

Date of Birth

1887

Date of Death

1969

Political
Preference

Hamilcar Alivisatos (sometimes also Alivizatos) was a Greek Church historian and canonical law scholar, having undergone theological training in Athens, Berlin, and Leipzig. In 1918, he accepted a chair in canon law and pastoral theology at the University of Athens.

Together with Nikolai Berdyaev and Georges Florovsky, Alivisatos was one of the great voices of Eastern Orthodox thought within the ecumenical movement. Active in both the Life and Work Movement and the Faith and Order Movement, the two streams which would later constitute the World Council of Churches, Alivisatos was often critical of the dominance of Western and Protestant theological thought in the World Council and its affiliates, something which became even more crucial when, from 1946, he was one of the only non-Western participants in the Commission of the Churches for International Affairs. From 1948 until his death, he served on the WCC’s Central Committee.

Alivisatos thus represented the Orthodox Church of Greece in ecumenist conferences, but he also sought to reform her. In his magnum opus, Oikonomia, Alivizatos discussed the concept of oikonomia in the canonical law of the Orthodox Church. Throughout his life and work as an ecumenist, Alivisatos sought to make the Orthodox Church better known to Western Christians. An academic of great reputation, Alivisatos received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Oxford in 1938 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Saloniki in 1960. He also served as President of the Academy of Athens.