BRUSSELS – The European Parliament, which named an event room after the late Greek World War II hero Manolis Glezos – who was a lawmaker there – will hold an even to mark what would have been his 100^th birthday.

Glezos died in 2020 at 97 after an eventful life that saw him – with his friend Apostolos Santas – climb up under the Acropolis in 1941 to go up and replace the Nazi swastika with the Greek flag – for which he was pilloried by right-wing elements in his own country and sentenced to death before it was lifted.

The event to honor Glezos will be held in September and is an initiative of the Left Group of the European Parliament and also coincide with the official unveiling of the European Parliament chamber in Brussels named for him.

While being hospitalized, he passed from heart failure after a life in which he was imprisoned for being a Leftist and seen as a hero around the world to resistance fighters of all persuasions admiring his courage and decency.

In a post on social media Prime Minister and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the lowering of the flag on the Acropolis at his passing was  a tribute to a “great Greek,” persecuted for his patriotism because of his political beliefs.

The Nazis sentenced him to death in absentia but never caught up to him and in later years he served in the Greek Parliament and Member of the European Parliament for the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA before breaking away after then-Premier Alexis Tsipras broke anti-austerity vows and hit workers, pensioners and the poor with brutal measures.