Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem
A U.S. citizen with Greek parents, Patrides was born in New York City in 1930 and raised there. With his parents, he was in Greece during World War II. While still a boy, he carried messages for the Greek resistance against the German occupation and thereby earned the Order of Unknown Heroes medal from the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. The resistance was led by the Greek Communist Party, which he viewed as a danger to the freedom of post-War Greece; later he identified himself as "a firm anti-Communist". His anti-Communism was Christian and humanistic, the same traditions which nourished his criticisms of the Renaissance and the Twentieth Century: