Damaskinos Papandreou
Damaskinos Papandreou ( Greek Δαμασκηνός Παπανδρέου , actually Dimitrios Papandreou ; born March 3, 1891 in Dorvitsa ; † May 19, 1949 in Athens ) was Archbishop of Athens and Prime Minister of Greece .
In 1970 he was posthumously awarded the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations .
Life
Papandreou studied law and literature in Athens before joining the clergy in 1917. In 1918 he was elected Metropolitan of Corinth and in 1938 Archbishop of Athens , an office which, because of his politically liberal attitude, he was only allowed to take up after the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas in 1941, which he spent under house arrest in a monastery.
After the Wehrmacht occupied Greece in the spring of 1941 during World War II , Damaskinos became the most important figure in the non-communist resistance. He built a network of clergy to alleviate the plight of the population that followed from the occupation. He also spoke out against the deportation of forced laborers, hostage-taking and the threat to Greek Jews from the Germans.
When the battle for Athens between the communist guerrillas ELAS and British troops broke out after the liberation of Greece , Damaskinos chaired the subsequent conference with representatives of various political groups. Thereupon, on the advice of Winston Churchill , the exiled Greek King George II appointed the archbishop as regent on December 30, 1944. Damaskinos tried to lead the country during the first phase of the Greek Civil War until the king returned after a referendum in September 1946.
Web links
- Archbishop Damaskinos and Greek Intellectuals Protest Persecution of Greek Jewry , Jewish Virtual Library, accessed June 8, 2017
- Newspaper article about Damaskinos Papandreou in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ^ Yad Vashem : Damaskinos Theophilos , accessed February 25, 2020
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Petros Voulgaris |
Prime Minister of Greece 1945–1946 |
Panagiotis Kanellopoulos |
| Chrysanthos |
Archbishop of Athens 1941–1949 |
Spyridon |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Papandreou, Damaskinos |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Papandreou, Dimitrios; Παπανδρέου, Δαμασκηνός (Greek) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Archbishop of Athens and Prime Minister of Greece |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 3, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dorvitsa |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 19, 1949 |
| Place of death | Athens |