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He was born Dimitrios Papandreou in [[Dorvitsa]], [[Aitoloakarnania prefecture]], Greece (no relationship to politician [[Georgios Papandreou]]). He enlisted in the Greek army during the [[Balkan Wars]]. He was ordained a priest of the [[Greek Orthodox Church]] in [[1917]]. In [[1922]], he was made bishop of [[Corinth]]. He spend 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]].
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 Chrisanthos [[Chrysanthos]] 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 Chrisanthos 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 Tsolakoglou]]), and Damaskinos was reinstalled.
[[Image:Churchill-damaskinos.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Archbishop Damaskinos and Winston Churchill]]
