Vasilis Tzaferis

Vasilis Tzaferis was born in 1936 in Samos

Tzaferis was born on 1 April 1936 on the Greek island of Samos, to a poor farming family. As a child he lived through the Italian and German occupations and the Greek civil war.

In 1950 he began studying theology with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem. He took monastic vows and became a deacon in 1956 and a priest in 1958, serving the Greek Orthodox community in Nazareth. He was then allowed to study history and archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 1964 he left the church to marry. Called to serve in the Greek army, he refused and lost his Greek citizenship, staying in Israel. He earned an MA and a PhD at the Hebrew University, receiving the doctorate in 1971.

He worked as a field archaeologist for the Israel Department of Antiquities and its successor, the Israel Antiquities Authority. He became deputy director of surveys and excavations in 1971 and director in 1991, retiring in 2001. He excavated at sites including Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Beth She'an, Capernaum, Kursi and Tel Dan.

He was curator of the Patriarchal Museum in Jerusalem from 1984 to 2002 and president of the Greek community in Jerusalem. In 2010 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Israel Antiquities Authority. He died on 1 January 2015 in Thessaloniki.