Pope, Orthodox leaders to meet refugees

LESBOS: Pope Francis and the spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians are to set aside centuries of dispute today when they visit a Greek island to highlight the plight of refugees.

Nearly a million people, many fleeing war, persecution and poverty in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have risked their lives in rickety boats from Turkey, crossing to Lesbos before heading to the Greek mainland and onwards to western Europe.

Hundreds have died, leaving land plots on Lesbos dotted with unidentified graves.

In a lightning trip, the pope will meet refugees along with Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians, and Ieronymos II, head of the Greek Orthodox Church.

The pope has often defended refugees and urged Catholic parishes in Europe to host them. His first trip after becoming pontiff in 2013 was to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, which, like Lesbos, has received many thousands of refugees.

Today the three leaders are to visit Moria, a sprawling, fenced complex holding more than 3 000 refugees.

They are due to greet 250 refugees requesting asylum and eat lunch with eight in a container before the pontiff delivers a speech and each leader will recite a prayer for victims.

Aid groups and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) have left Moria in protest at the conditions there.

“If nothing else, the pope’s visit will give half of the prisoners a better quality of life for a few days,” said Alison TerryEvans, who runs Dirty Girls, an organisation which launders blankets handed out by the UNHCR. – Reuters