Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens

Dama Papandreou (Greek Δαμασκηνός Παπανδρέου, actually Dimitrios Papandreou, born March 3 1891 in Dorvitsa, † May 19 1949 in Athens ) was Archbishop of Athens and Greek Prime Minister.

Papandreou studied law and literature at Athens, before he entered the clergy in 1917. 1918 elected Metropolitan of Corinth, and in 1938 Archbishop of Athens, an office which he was allowed to compete because of its liberal attitude, after the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas ' in 1941, which he spent under house arrest in a monastery.

After the Germans in World War II in the spring of 1941 occupied Greece, Damaskinos became the most important figure of the non- communist resistance. He built up a network of clergy, should be tempered with the emergencies of the population that followed from the occupation. He also entered against the deportation of slave labor, hostage-taking and the threat of Greek Jews by the Germans. Damaskinos was honored by Israel with the title Righteous Among the Nations.

When it came to the liberation of Greece to the Battle of Athens between the communist guerrillas ELAS and British troops, Damaskinos had chaired the subsequent conference with representatives of various political groups. Then the exiled Greek King George II appointed on the advice of Winston Churchill the Archbishop on 30 December 1944 to the regent. Damaskinos tried to lead the country during the first phase of the Greek Civil War until the king returned to a referendum in September 1946.

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