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Here is what wikipedia says about him:
It suggests he was a Vlach by descent, but then I read this recently also:
Why would Bishop Naum say this?
Patriarch Athenagoras was born on March 25, 1886 into an Aromanian family as Aristocles Spyrou in Vasiliko, near Ioannina, Epirus (then Ottoman Empire)................He served as archdeacon of the Diocese of Pelagonia before becoming the secretary to Archbishop Meletius (Metaxakis) of Athens in 1919...............
His 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..........It produced the joint Catholic-Orthodox 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................Not all Orthodox leaders, however, received the declaration with joy. Metropolitan Philaret's 1965 epistle to the Patriarch openly challenged his efforts at repproachmant with the Roman Catholic Church fearing it would lead to heresy.
His 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..........It produced the joint Catholic-Orthodox 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................Not all Orthodox leaders, however, received the declaration with joy. Metropolitan Philaret's 1965 epistle to the Patriarch openly challenged his efforts at repproachmant with the Roman Catholic Church fearing it would lead to heresy.
I asked him (Bishop Naum of Strumica, at the Veljusa Monastery) if he felt as confident as Archbishop Mihail that the Macedonian Orthodox Church would be recognized by Constantinople and the other Orthodox Churches at the turn of the century. He thought for a moment. 'In the 1970's Patriarch Atenagoras of Constantinople gave us hope, perhaps because he was a Macedonian himself. He said, "if you live the Orthodox way, you will be recognized one day." So we are trying to do just that. That renaissance of the monasteries is a very important part of living in the Orthodox way.' (Victoria Clark, Why Angels Fall, pg 133).
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