The churches under his jurisdiction were also ordered quietly by Damaskinos to distribute Christian baptismal certificates to Jews fleeing the Nazis, thus saving thousands of Romaniote Jews in and around Athens. Damaskinos advised his priests to do everything they could to help the Jews and to hide those for whom it was not possible to forge baptismal certificates. For his actions in saving Greek Jews during the Holocaust, he was named among the Righteous Among the Nations distinction by Yad Vashem.