Archbishop Spyridon was born on September 24, 1944, in Warren, Ohio and was the son of Clara and Constantine Papageorge, ethnic Greek American parents.

His stay in Italy, where Catholicism is prominent, led to his 1984 appointment as Executive Secretary of the Inter-Orthodox Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches.

He was Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's delegate to the Special Synod of the Roman Catholic Bishops in Europe which took place in Rome in 1991 where his address on the theological dialogue between Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism received much praise.

Following his productive 22-year ministry in Italy and because of his American birth, he was appointed Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America on July 30, 1997.

[2] He never accepted his subsequent appointment as Metropolitan of Chaldia by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and on September 15, 1999, he left New York City and moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where he occasionally grants interviews and writes articles for the Greek press in America.