Petros was born as Petros Papapetrou in Sichari, Kyrenia, in what is today the self-proclaimed and internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on the island of Cyprus. He assumed the Patriarchate of Alexandria on March 9, 1997, following his election by the Alexandrian Holy Synod the previous February 21. Before his election, Petros had served as a deacon and a priest, and was consecrated as a bishop in 1983. He had a close rapport with his predecessor, Pope Parthenios III of Alexandria and assumed the latter's post after his death in 1996.