Athanasios Theologides

February 5, 1931 - September 27, 2026

With sorrow, we announce the passing of Dr. Athanasios Theologides on September 27, 2026, in San Jose, California, with his family by his side.

Athanasios was born on February 5, 1931, in Ptolemaida, Greece, the first child of Stelios Theologides and Stergia Hadjinota, refugees from Western Anatolia and Pontus. He spent his early childhood in Ptolemaida, where his father was a physician and civic leader. The family’s peaceful life was shattered in 1941 by the Nazi invasion and brutal occupation.

Following Greece’s liberation and amid the violence of the Greek Civil War, the family moved to Thessaloniki in 1946. Athanasios graduated from high school there in 1949 as valedictorian. Drawn to medicine by both personal calling and family tradition - his father and maternal grandfather were physicians - he entered the Medical School at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, graduating in 1955.

After completing a required year of service as a rural physician in the mountains near Veria, in 1956, Athanasios journeyed to St. Paul, Minnesota for a two-year internship at St. Joseph’s Hospital. He then pursued his residency at the University of Minnesota Medical School, specializing in internal medicine while concurrently working toward a Ph.D. in medicine and biochemistry.

In 1963, Athanasios paused his doctoral research to return to Greece to fulfill his military service obligation. While working at a Thessaloniki hospital and awaiting a visa to return to the University of Minnesota, he met Maria “Maro” Mystakidou, the second daughter of a prominent pediatrician. They married in 1965, beginning a loving partnership that would span more than six decades. Their honeymoon was also their passage to their new life together: a voyage aboard the SS Queen Frederica from Piraeus to New York.

Back in Minnesota with Maro, Athanasios completed his Ph.D. in 1967 and joined the University of Minnesota faculty. He became a tenured Professor of Internal Medicine in 1974. Along the way, he and Maro embraced their adopted country, becoming U.S. citizens in 1971 and deciding to build their family here.

Athanasios forged a distinguished career in academic medicine, earning board certification in both medical oncology and hematology. He became a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and belonged to several biomedical societies, including as a charter member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. A prolific basic and clinical researcher, he authored or co-authored more than 150 publications. Equally important to him was teaching: he devoted himself to mentoring generations of physicians and was honored with numerous awards for teaching excellence.

In recognition of his academic contributions, Athanasios received one of the highest honors of his career in 1994, when he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens, Greece’s national academy and preeminent research institution, tracing its intellectual heritage to Plato’s ancient Academy.

Athanasios became Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota and retired as head of the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Hennepin County Medical Center in 1995. He then spent the final decade of his career as deputy and special advisor to the medical director of Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Company. There, he helped advance approaches that enabled insurers to responsibly underwrite life insurance policies for cancer patients and survivors.

In 2006, Athanasios and Maro moved to Santa Clara, California, to be closer to their children, who had settled in Northern and Southern California. The move allowed them to help raise their youngest grandchild, who lived in Santa Clara, and brought them closer to their three older grandchildren in Irvine. They spent their later years experiencing the joy of grandparenting while embracing their new communities at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and in their neighborhood.

For all his professional achievements, Athanasios considered his most important accomplishment to be the family he and Maro built together. His children and grandchildren knew his constant warmth, support, guidance, and mischievous humor as they grew and forged their own paths. He encouraged them to cultivate their intellectual curiosity and to keep learning - not only within their own fields, but about literature, art, theater, history, culture, science, and the broader world. His own curiosity never left him; he read voraciously until his eyesight failed him. As an enduring expression of both that curiosity and his constant focus on others, he sent each grandchild newspaper and magazine clippings nearly every day until the final weeks of his life.

His long life joined two countries and cultures, a deeply cherished family, abiding faith, a demanding vocation, and intellectual achievement. He will be remembered for his devotion to family; his kindness and gentle nature; his humility; his mischievous humor; his lifelong love of learning; and his loyalty to his friends, his church and his various communities.

Athanasios instilled these qualities in his children and grandchildren, along with a deep pride in their Hellenic heritage and gratitude toward the adopted country that had given him such extraordinary opportunity.

Athanasios is survived by his wife, Maro; his children, Terry and Lia; their spouses, Deb and Marwan; and his grandchildren, Eliana, T.R., Alicia, and Maria. He was preceded in death by his parents; his brother Isidoros, who passed away in August of this year; and his brother Yiannis, who passed away as a toddler.

The family extends its deepest gratitude to the compassionate caregivers and staff of Merrill Gardens, Home Instead, and Redwood Hospice, as well as the physicians and nurses at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, whose skill and care supported Athanasios and his family during his final years.

The Trisagion service and reception will be held on Friday, October 16th at 7:00 pm at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, 1260 Davis Street, San Jose, CA 95126. The Funeral service will be held on Saturday, October 17th at 12:30 pm also at St. Nicholas, followed by the Interment at 2:00 pm at Mission City Memorial Park, 420 N. Winchester Blvd., Santa Clara, CA 95050. A Makaria (memorial meal) will follow back at St. Nicholas in the Small Hall.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.