Kallinikos was Metropolitan of Edessa, Pella and Almopia in northern Greece from 1967 until his death in 1984. He was remembered by his contemporaries as an ascetic and prayerful archpastor who joined the episcopal office to a monastic discipline, and who was esteemed as a preacher and spiritual father. He is commemorated on August 8, and was numbered among the saints by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2020.
He was born Dimitrios Poulos in 1919 in the village of Sitaralona in Aetolia-Acarnania, into a poor and pious family. He studied at the Theological School of the University of Athens, graduating in 1942, and afterward served the Metropolis of Aitolia and Acarnania as secretary and preacher. In 1957 he was tonsured a monk at the Monastery of Myrtia, taking the name Kallinikos, and in the same year was ordained deacon and priest.
Consecrated Metropolitan of Edessa, Pella and Almopia in 1967, he gave himself to the pastoral care of his flock, to charity, and to a life of prayer. Sources describe him as an ascetic bishop whose philanthropy was generous to the point of leaving himself with nothing. After an illness of several months he reposed in 1984, and was widely venerated in the decades that followed. The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate formally proclaimed his sainthood in 2020.
