Dorotheus of Athens

Dorotheus (Greek: Δωρόθεος, secular name Ioannis Kottaras Greek: Ιωάννης Κοτταράς) was Archbishop of Athens and All Greece from 1956 to 1957. He was born in Hydra in 1888 and studied theology at the University of Athens, from where he graduated in 1909. He then studied law at the Universities of Athens and Leipzig, and specialised in ecclesiastical law. For a brief period, he was a schoolteacher in Sparta.

He became a monk, and was ordained a deacon on September 18, 1910 by the then Metropolitan Bishop of Hydra and Spetses Ioasaph and served as a deacon for nine years in the Church of St George Carytses in Athens. On December 18, 1922 he was ordained a priest by the then Metropolitan Bishop of Hydra and Spetses Procopius. Two days later, he was ordained a bishop by the then Metropolitan Bishops of Fthiotida Ambrosius and Syros Athanasius, and was appointed Metropolitan Bishop of Kythera and Antikythera.

On January 15, 1935, he was transferred to the Metropolis of Larissa and Platamon from where he was appointed Archbishop of Athens and All Greece on March 29, 1956, succeeding Archbishop Spyridon.

He died in Stockholm on July 26, 1957. During his life, he wrote over forty treatises on ecclesiastical law.