ATHENS — The pandemic and the vaccination programme dominated the meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos on Thursday.

Welcoming the Archbishop to the Maximos Mansion, the prime minister asked the Church for its assistance in persuading those that still hesitate to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

"We hope the high temperatures will help to further limit the spread of the virus. As you are aware, we are doing well and have substantially reduced the number of cases while speeding up the vaccinations," Mitsotakis said.

"As we have discussed many times, we must persuade our compatriots that still hesitate and are distrustful to make haste to get vaccinated and this is especially true of the elderly, who face the greatest danger if they get sick. For this reason, I want to ask you to again urge the priests, even through the mass, to persuade the hesitant to take this additional step. You have done so many times before and I ask you to do it once again".

On his part, Archbishop Ieronymos said that the Church believes that in overcoming this great challenge, the collaboration of the government, the Church and science is imperative. "We did it before and we will do it again and again, as many times as necessary," he noted, adding that "science and religion, our faith, cannot be opposed in the specific matter."