The leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, will visit Cyprus and Greece in the first week of December on a five-day Apostolic Journey.
In a statement released on Friday, the Holy See Press Office announced that the pope will visit the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, on December 2-4, followed by a trip to Athens and Lesvos until December 6, when he will return to Rome.
According to the Holy See Press Office, the pope is undertaking the Apostolic Journey to Cyprus and Greece upon the invitation of the countries’ civil authorities and bishops’ conferences. The full schedule of the visit will be released in coming weeks.
The trip will mark Pope Francis’ second official visit to Lesvos. After he visited the Greek island in 2016, he likened local migrant facilities to “concentration camps.”
After visiting the Moria camp, Francis took 12 Syrian refugees back with him to Rome aboard the papal plane.
Featured image: Pope Francis in October 2014. (Photo courtesy of Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk via Flickr)
