Dean of Holy Cross Seminary Elevated to Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne

Commencement Day 2025 at Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology began as it does every year with a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy. Before it ended, Archbishop Elpidophoros of America elevated Rev. Dr. Eugen J. Pentiuc, Dean of Holy Cross and the Archbishop Demetrios Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies and Christian Origins, to Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne – and honor held by a small group of clergymen in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.

Archbishop Elpidophoros granted Fr. Pentiuc the Cross of Hagia Sophia while conveying the greetings and congratulations of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. 

“His All-Holiness, our Ecumenical Patriarch, asked me today to honor someone from the faculty of Holy Cross, someone so successful, so beloved, so honored by you and by the entire international academic community that makes us all proud in a way that His All-Holiness heard about this and asked me to award Rev. Fr. Eugen Pentiuc, who is the dean of theological school, with the Offikion of Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne,” said the Archbishop. 

Added school President Demetrios Katos PhD., “It is a special blessing that the bestowing of the rank of Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne upon Fr. Pentiuc coincides with the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council. This is a singular honor not only for Fr. Eugen, who is the first clergy-faculty in recent history to receive this Offikion, but also for Holy Cross since it continues the close relationship between our school, the Archdiocese and the Ecumenical Throne.”  

Fr. Pentiuc has taught Old Testament and Semitic languages at HCHC since 1998. He is married to Dr. Flora (Popescu) Pentiuc, and they have two children, Daniel and Cristina. His education includes Bucharest University, École Biblique et archéologique française in Jerusalem, and Harvard University.

A prolific author who has published many books, Fr. Pentiuc’s works include Hosea: The Word of the Lord that Happened to Hosea (The Bible in Its Traditions 3. École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2017); The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition (Oxford 

University Press, 2014; translated in Arabic, Romanian, Albanian); Hearing the Scriptures: Liturgical Exegesis of Old Testament in Byzantine Orthodox Hymnography (Oxford University Press, 2021); and The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Orthodox Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2022). Fr. Pentiuc is currently working on a new book entitled Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible from an Orthodox Perspective under the contract with Oxford University Press.