Athenagoras I: Our Great Patriarch by Xenophon Diamond - 1969

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, 1969. Paperback. Very Good/No. CLEAN!! No marks. Light wear on cover. Small scrape on back cover. . . . . . . . Athenagoras I born Aristocles Matthaiou (*son of Matthew*, a patronymic) (6 April [O.S. 25 March] 1886 – July 7, 1972), was Greek Orthodox Archbishop of North and South America from 1930 to 1948 and the 268th Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1948 to 1972. On November 1, 1948, he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople at the age of 62.[9] In January 1949, he was honored to be flown in the personal airplane of the American president Harry Truman to Istanbul, Turkey to assume his new position. As Patriarch, he was actively involved with the World Council of Churches and improving relations with the Catholic Church and the Pope. He was hospitalized on July 6, 1972, for a broken hip, but died from kidney failure in Istanbul (Constantinople) the following day at the age of 86.[11] He was buried in the cemetery within the grounds of the Church of Saint Mary of the Spring in Balıklı, Istanbul. Athenagoras's meeting with Pope Paul VI in 1964 in Jerusalem led to rescinding the excommunications of 1054 which historically mark the Great Schism, the schism between the churches of the East and West. This was a significant step towards restoring communion between Rome and Constantinople and the other patriarchates of Orthodoxy. It produced the Catholic–Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965, which was read out on December 7, 1965, simultaneously at a public meeting of the Second Vatican Council in Rome and at a special ceremony in Constantinople. The controversial declaration did not end the 1054 schism, but rather showed a desire for greater reconciliation between the two churches, as represented by Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I. Not all Orthodox leaders, however, received the declaration with joy. In his 1965 epistle to the Patriarch, Metropolitan Philaret of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad openly challenged the Patriarch's efforts at rapprochement with the Catholic Church fearing it would lead to heresy. -- Wikipedia