His Beatitude, Makarios III (1913-1977), archbishop and ethnarch of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus and the first president of the Republic of Cyprus, 1959-1977, championed the campaign to unite the island politically with Greece for a quarter-century.

Archbishop Makarios III was born Michael Christodoulou Mouskos on August 13, 1913, the son of a goatherder in the village of Ano Panayia, near Paphos in western Cyprus. The island was then under British administration. At age 13, after a primary education in the village, he was accepted as a novice in the famed monastery of Kykko and began a brilliant career as a student. At age 20 he was sent to the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia, where he completed his secondary education in 1936. Returning to Kykko, he was ordained a deacon in the Greek Orthodox Church in August 1938, taking the name of Makarios, meaning "blessed." A month later the monastery gave him a small...