page_title: Timeline of Orthodoxy in Greece (1924–1974)
section_title: Kingdom of Greece restored (1935–1967)
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of Orthodoxy in Greece (1924–1974) / Kingdom of Greece restored (1935–1967)
caption_attribution_description: עברית: הארכיבישוף דמסקינוס כפי שצולם בינואר 1945 English: Archbishop Damaskinos of Greece
context_page_description: This is a timeline of the presence of Orthodoxy in Greece. The history of Greece traditionally encompasses the study of the Greek people, the areas they ruled historically, as well as the territory now composing the modern state of Greece.
  Christianity was first brought to the geographical area corresponding to modern Greece by the Apostle Paul, although the church's apostolicity also rests upon St. Andrew who preached the gospel in Greece and suffered martyrdom in Patras, Titus, Paul's companion who preached the gospel in Crete where he became bishop, Philip who, according to the tradition, visited and preached in Athens, Luke the Evangelist who was martyred in Thebes, Lazarus of Bethany, Bishop of Kition in Cyprus, and John the Theologian who was exiled on the island of Patmos where he received the Revelation recorded in the last book of the New Testament. In addition, the Theotokos is regarded as having visited the Holy Mountain in 49 AD according to tradition. Thus Greece became the first European area to accept the gospel of Christ. Towards the end of the 2nd century the early apostolic bishoprics had developed into metropolitan sees in the most important cities.
context_section_description: 1936 Apostolic Ministry of the Church of Greece founded ( 'Apostoliki Diakonia' ); General Ioannis Metaxas, Prime Minister of Greece during the 4th of August Regime (1936–41), propagated a Third Hellenic Civilization (Ancient Greece and Byzantium being the first two); by 1936, Zoe Brotherhood had opened 300 catechetical schools with 35,000 pupils, and received the first prize at the International Protestant Conference on Sunday Schools in Oslo.
  1937 The Ecumenical Patriarchate chose a number of highly educated religious personalities for key positions in the recently declared Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania, after an agreement with the Albanian authorities, including Panteleimon (Kotokos) as Metr. of Gjirokastër, and Eulogios (Kourilas), as metropolitan of Korytsa; Mass NKVD operation against Greeks in the USSR begins, based on Joseph Stalin's Directive 50125 of Dec. 1937, resulting in the loss of 38,000 Soviet citizens of Hellenic descent at the Gulags of Siberia.
  1938 Death of Silouan of Mt Athos; Chrysanthos (Philippidis) becomes the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece (1938-1941); American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese is founded, when a group of 37 Ruthenian Eastern Catholic parishes, under the leadership of Fr. Orestes Chornock were received into the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
  1939–49 World War II and subsequent Greek Civil War (1944–49), famine and widespread bloodshed.
  1939 The emigration of the Antiochian Greeks reaches its peak.
  1941 In occupied Athens, Abp. Chrysanthos refused to swear in the first Quisling government of Georgios Tsolakoglou appointed by the Germans.
  1943 Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupation forces, including the monks and monastery of Agia Lavra; the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews of Athens fails, thanks to the combined efforts of Abp. Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Athens, Greek resistance groups and the Greek people.
  1944 Abp. Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Athens serves as regent in an attempt to stabilise Greece (31 Dec 1944 – 28 Sep 1946).
  1946 The Civil Code of Greece (Gr: Αστικός Κώδικας) came into effect on February 23, 1946.
  1947 The Dodecanese Islands are liberated but remain under the Patriarchate of Constantinople; death of Venerable Saint Savvas the New of Kalymnos.
  1949 Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark founded an Orthodox nursing order of nuns known as the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, and built a convent and orphanage in a poor suburb of Athens.
  1950 Uncovering of the relics of St. Ephraim of Nea Makri (†1426); foundation of the Albanian Orthodox Diocese of America under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, with the episcopal ordination on September 10 in Constantinople of Mark Lipa as titular Bishop of Levka (1950-1982).
  1951 In June, the Church of Greece organized inter-orthodox events in commemoration of the 1900th anniversary of the Apostle Paul's mission to Athens; the 1500th anniversary celebration of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
  1952 The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece decided to commemorate the feast day of The Protection of the Mother of God on 28 October, rather than on the traditional date of 1 October, thus coinciding with Ohi Day in Greece; new monastery of Panagia Soumela built in the village of Kastania, in Macedonia, Greece, housing the wonder-working icon of Panagia Soumela, becoming a center of religious pilgrimage; Ecumenical Patr. Athenagoras I (Spyrou) officially visited, for the first time in the last one thousand years, the Papal representative in Constantinople, who returned the visit.
  1953 The Athonite School was officially re-established in Mount Athos, now named the Athonite Ecclesiastical Academy, occupying a wing of the Skete of St. Andrew in Karyes, following the Greek secondary school curriculum combined with ecclesiastical education.
  1955 Istanbul Pogrom: In September an organised mob was turned against the ethnic Greek community and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in an orchestrated pogrom, destroying 73 churches, 1,004 residences, 5,000 small- and medium-sized businesses, two cemeteries
caption: Abp. Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Athens (1941–1949).
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