The Greek Orthodox Church's new Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa, Theodore II, was enthroned in this coastal city in northern Egypt.
Greek President Costis Stefanopoulos attended the three-hour-long ceremony, which took place at the seat of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, one of the branches of Eastern Orthodoxy.
Around 2,000 Orthodox worshippers crammed into the nave and galleries of the Al-Bishara Church in Alexandria's central Raml neighbourhood for the ceremony.
Hundreds of others, mainly worshippers who travelled from Greece or members of Alexandria's small Greek community, watched the ceremony on a huge screen set up outisde the church for the occasion.
Theodore II, who also has the title of pope, succeeds Petros VII, who died last month with 16 other people in a Greek army helicopter crash off Mount Athos in northeastern Greece.
The new patriarch entered the church in a procession of priests holding three-pronged candlesticks before donning a gold-embroidered red robe.
His lengthy speech was often interrupted by cheers from a boisterous congregation to which the patriarch responded by waving at the crowd.
Christian Coptic Pope Shenuda III, Alexandria Governor Abdul Salam al-Mahgub, as well as Vatican representatives, also attended the ceremony during which Theodore II was crowned and received the patriarchal crosier.
Aged 50, he becomes the second most senior figure in the Orthodox hierarchy after Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople (Istanbul).
A funeral was held in Cairo on September 15 four days after the death of the Cypriot-born Petros, who was greatly respected for his work on improving Orthodox relations with the Coptic and Roman Catholic Churches, as well as for humanitarian commitments in Africa.
Theodore II was chosen on October 9 by a college made up of the 13 metropolitans of the Holy synod of the patriarchy of Alexandria.
There are an estimated 50,000 Greek Orthodox in Egypt, whose total population is over 70 million.
Theodore was born on the island of Crete in 1954 and consecrated a deacon in 1975 and a bishop in 1978. He studied theology at the University of Salonika in northern Greece and worked for the archbishop of Sfakia in Crete before leaving Greece in 1985 to serve the patriarchate of Alexandria.
He was elected metropolitan of Cameroon in 1997 and of Zimbabwe in 2002.