![\"Archdiocese](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/98750sp_385w_217h_374x_263y.png\")
\u00a0(Photo: Jessy Papasavva Photography)<\/p>\n \u00a0(Photo: Jessy Papasavva Photography)<\/p>\n
The Greek Orthodox Church has said that this Easter weekend saw more than 250 new members baptised.<\/p>\n
Mass baptism events were held all across the country, with the largest being in Hertfordshire, where 75 people received baptism.<\/p>\n
The church said that many of those baptised had been guided into the faith through its Discover Orthodoxy programme.<\/p>\n
Most of the new members were adults, but some were children. While many of the new believers were from traditionally Orthodox countries, like Greece and Cyprus, a number were also from Britain and the Commonwealth, Latin America and other parts of Europe.<\/p>\n
Following their baptism, the new believers took part in the Divine Liturgy and received the Holy Eucharist for the first time.<\/p>\n
The church said in a statement, \u201cThe day will be remembered not only for the number received, but for what it quietly revealed \u2013 a growing and living Church, gathering people from many places into a shared life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Orthodox Church in Britain is known officially as the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain and was founded in 1922 in the wake of the \u201cAsia Minor Catastrophe\u201d.<\/p>\n
The \u201cCatastrophe\u201d unfolded in the final months of the Greco-Turkish War when Greek forces attempted to occupy parts of modern day Turkey. Having over-extended themselves the Greeks were then roundly defeated by the nationalist Turkish army of Kemal Ataturk.<\/p>\n
In September of that year the Turks took the city of Smyrna, leading to a devastating fire in the city.<\/p>\n
Following these events, its believed that around 1.3 million Orthodox Greeks fled the region, effectively bringing an end the millennia long presence of Greek civilization in what is now Turkey.<\/p>\n
Thyateira was one of the seven churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation, all of which would have been Greek-speaking communities located in modern-day Turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0(Photo: Jessy Papasavva Photography) The Greek Orthodox Church has said that this Easter weekend saw more than 250…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4503,13,468,4502],"class_list":{"0":"post-9113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-baptism","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-easter","11":"tag-greek-orthodox-church"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116367588383004010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}