Gerasimus III was

Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople The ecumenical patriarch ( el, Οἰκουμενικός Πατριάρχης, translit=Oikoumenikós Patriárchēs) is the archbishop of Constantinople ( Istanbul), New Rome and '' primus inter pares'' (first among equals) among the heads of ...

from 1794 to 1797. He descended from

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

. In 1762 he was elected metropolitan bishop of

Vize Vize ( el, Βιζύη, bg, Виза) is a town and district of Kırklareli Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. The district governor is Elif Canan Tuncer, and the mayor is Ercan Özalp ( CHP). According to the Turkish Statistical Institu ...

, in 1783 of

İzmit İzmit () is a district and the central district of Kocaeli province, Turkey. It is located at the Gulf of İzmit in the Sea of Marmara, about east of Istanbul, on the northwestern part of Anatolia. As of the last 31/12/2019 estimation, the ...

and in 1791 of Derkoi. In the 3rd of March in 1794 he was elected Ecumenical Patriarch, succeeding Neophytus VII. During his patriarchy he regulated many ecclesiastic issues. One of which was setting an age requirement in the ordainment of clerics in 1795, prohibiting the ordainment of

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Chur ...

under 25 years old and

presbyter Presbyter () is an honorific title for Christian clergy. The word derives from the Greek ''presbyteros,'' which means elder or senior, although many in the Christian antiquity would understand ''presbyteros'' to refer to the bishop functioning a ...

under 30 years old. In the 19th of April in 1797 he resigned and retired to Tarabiye, where he died a while later.

References

{{authority control Greek Cypriot people 18th-century Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople