ATHENS — "With every respect, we asked the Holy Fathers to support and assist this effort to fight the pandemic," Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias said on Tuesday after visiting the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece and briefing the Church's highest-ranking clerics on the course of the pandemic, as well as the necessity of vaccination, with epidemiology expert Professor Sotiris Tsiodras.

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece said it was a "useful and crucial meeting", in which questions were answered by the minister and Professor Tsiodras.

"We will fight for the good of the people. All of us would want to say that this effort continue. The Church will make this effort through spiritual processes with the sole motive of tackling the pandemic," he added.

Tsiodras said the meeting had been constructive and that all sides were together in searching for the truth. "We hope through vaccination to return to a form of normality," he stressed, adding that the virus was currently very widely spread in the community.