The Reverend Protopresbyter Athanasios Gkikas, Dean, Faculty of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Protopresbyter Athanasios Gkikas was born in Lamia, Phthiotis, in 1959 and resides in Thessaloniki.

He is a professor in the Department of Social Theology and Christian Culture and Dean of the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. For more than three decades he has taught in this Department at undergraduate and postgraduate level Practical/Applied Theology, with a focus on Pastoral Care and Confession.

His research interests focus on Pastoral Theology (theory and practice) as it is handed down in the history of the Church and as it is applied today in parish life. He also focuses on Pastoral Psychology as an auxiliary science of pastoral care, in order to address contemporary pastoral problems. Pastoral Psychology chiefly serves as an aid to spiritual fathers in the ministry of the mystery of repentance/confession, and also to educators/theologians in approaching adolescent students through interpersonal relationships.

In addition to his academic activity, he is a married clergyman and belongs (1983–present) to the Holy Metropolis of Neapolis and Stavroupolis. He serves, as Oikonomos and Confessor, at the Holy Metochion of Saint Haralambos of the Holy Monastery of Simonopetra of Mount Athos in Thessaloniki.

His pastoral work there includes a daily liturgical program, the mystery of confession, catechesis and counseling for young people and adolescents, family counseling, and addressing problematic social situations. This activity is integrated into his research interests and constitutes—beyond its spiritual value—content of scientific experience and training within the practical framework of Pastoral Theology as a discipline. It feeds into the formulation of the theory of the courses of Pastoral Theology, Pastoral Psychology, and Counseling as practical theological courses, for the formation of students as educators and especially candidates for the priesthood.

During his two-year educational leave in Great Britain (1986–1988) he served the Greek diaspora as parish priest of the Greek Orthodox Community of Glasgow in Scotland, where he developed pastoral action for the advancement of the Community’s educational, social, and spiritual goals.

Selected publications: The Problem of Drugs and its Confrontation by the Church (Thessaloniki, 1993); The Spiritual Father and the Mystery of Repentance (Kyriakidis Publications, Thessaloniki, 2025); Pastoral Therapeutics: A Study of the Letters to Clergy by Abba Nilus (Thessaloniki, 2007); Homosexuality: A Contemporary Pastoral Challenge (Kyriakidis Publications, Thessaloniki, 2025); The Vesture of the Orthodox Clergy: History – Present – Future (Thessaloniki, 2001).