Archbishop Damaskinos Papandreou

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Archbishop Damaskinos Papandreou (Greek: Αρχιεπίσκοπος Δαμασκηνός Παπανδρέου), born Dimitrios Papandreou (Greek: Δημήτριος Παπανδρέου; 3 March 1891 – 20 May 1949), was the archbishop of Athens and All Greece from 1941 until his death in 1949. He was also the regent of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King George II to Greece in 1946. His rule was between the liberation of Greece from the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II and the Greek Civil War.

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Early life He was born Dimitrios Papandreou (no relation to the Papandreou political family from Achaea) in Dorvitsa, Greece. He enlisted in the Hellenic Army during the Balkan Wars. He was ordained a Greek Orthodox Church priest in 1917. In 1922, he was made Bishop of Corinth. He spent the early 1930s as an ambassador of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the United States, where he labored to help organize the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

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Election to the Archbishopric of Athens In 1938, he was elected Archbishop of Athens, taking the name Damaskinos. Ioannis Metaxas, dictator of Greece at the time, objected to Damaskinos and forced the cancellation of his election and the appointment of Metropolitan Chrysanthus to the post. After the 1941 German invasion of Greece and the fall of the Greek government, the Metropolitans who had elected Damaskinos seized the opportunity to eject Chrysanthus from the throne (with German agreement, as the latter had refused to be present at the oath-taking ceremony of the quisling Prime Minister Georgios Tsolakoglu), and Damaskinos was reinstalled.

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Nazi occupation The Archbishop of Athens was the spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox people of Athens and All Greece, and Damaskinos worked very hard to live up to his position during those hard times. He frequently clashed with the German authorities and the Quisling government. The Germans took Greeks hostage and threatened to execute their hostages in the event of resistance. Damaskinos often visited hostages in prison the night before their executions to offer spiritual comfort to the doomed. The archbishop frequently sent his lawyer, Iannis Yeorgakis, to argue for freedom on behalf of Greeks tried in German military courts. In December 1942, Yeorgakis was banned from representing Greeks before the military courts after supposedly insulting a military judge. Initially, Yeorgakis accompanied those convicted by the military courts to their executions to offer moral support, but he found this duty to be so hollowing and heart-breaking that he ceased. In 1943, the Germans began the extermination of the Jews of Greece, and their deportations to Nazi concentration camps. Damaskinos formally protested the actions of the occupational authorities. Damaskinos first spoke out on behalf of the Jews in March 1943 when he published public letters addressed to Prime Minister Konstantinos…Citește mai mult

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The letter in part reads: The Greek Orthodox Church and the Academic World of Greek People Protest against the Persecution... The Greek people were... deeply grieved to learn that the German Occupation Authorities have already started to put into effect a program of gradual deportation of the Greek Jewish community... and that the first groups of deportees are already on their way to Poland... According to the terms of the armistice, all Greek citizens, without distinction of race or religion, were to be treated equally by the Occupation Authorities. The Greek Jews have proven themselves... valuable contributors to the economic growth of the country [and] law-abiding citizens who fully understand their duties as Greeks. They have made sacrifices for the Greek country, and were always on the front lines of the struggle of the Greek nation to defend its inalienable historical rights... In our national consciousness, all the children of Mother Greece are an inseparable unity: they are equal members of the national body irrespective of religion... Our holy religion does not recognize superior or inferior qualities based on race or religion, as it is stated: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek' and thus condemns any attempt to discriminate or…Citește mai mult

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After the liberation After the occupation ended, Damaskinos was proclaimed regent of Greece until a referendum was held for the return of King George II from exile. Harold Macmillan, the junior British minister in charge of Mediterranean affairs, met Damaskinos on 14 December 1944 and wrote his impression: "I was impressed by the wide grasp of European politics, the good sense, humor, and courage of this ecclesiastic. He is willing to accept the regency, but realises the difficulties. He shares our view that there must be no reprisals and no counter-revolution". The king was opposed to the idea of a regency and used his friendship with Winston Churchill to turn the prime minister completely against Damaskinos, saying he was both a Communist and a collaborator. Based on what he had heard from the king, Churchill called Damaskinos a "pestilent priest, a survival from the Middle Ages". During this time, fighting broke out between pro-royalist Greek soldiers and communist partisans in the Dekemvriana events. He took control of the situation in his early term, appointing himself Prime Minister in late 1945. Though he wielded little power in his latter term, Damaskinos continued to call for peace and order in the country.…Citește mai mult

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Sources Brewer, David (2016). Greece The Decade of War, Occupation, Resistance, and Civil War. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1780768540.