Pope Francis will be visiting Cyprus and Greece between 2 and 6 December as part of an effort to strengthen the connection between the Vatican and the Orthodox Church as well as celebrate the relationship between Greece and Italy.
“I am preparing to come as a pilgrim to your magnificent lands, blessed by history, culture and the Gospel,” the pope said in a message released ahead of his visit.
“I come with joy, precisely in the name of the Gospel, in the footsteps of the first great missionaries, especially the Apostles Paul and Barnabas,” he added. “ It is good to return to the origins and it is important for the Church to rediscover the joy of the Gospel.”
As the leader of the Catholic Church visits Athens on 4 December, several meetings as set to take place with political leaders, Catholic clergy, a group of Jesuits, and His Beatitude Hieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens & All Greece and Primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece.
Furthermore, on 5 December, Pope Francis will fly to the island of Lesvos, where he will visit refugees at a reception and identification facility in the island’s capital, Mytilini, before returning to Rome on 6 December.
