Church to provide support to refugee with top marks

As of Monday, the Church of Greece will be providing accommodation and living expenses for a 20-year-old refugee from Congo who secured a place at Piraeus Technical College’s electronic engineering department with the highest marks, less than four years after arriving in Greece without speaking the language.

The 20-year-old, identified only as Julien, arrived in Greece at the age of 16 in 2011 and spent three months at a detention center in Evros, northeastern Greece. In 2012, he was sent to a special center for underage refugees in Konitsa, northwestern Greece, where he also enrolled at the local high school.

Julien, whose parents and siblings have died, will be housed at a Church of Greece boarding house in Athens.

“Our interest in the well-being of our weaker fellow human beings must be constant and not stop when the spotlight of publicity is not on them,” the head of the Church’s missionary arm, known as Apostoliki Diakonia, Bishop Agathagelos, told Kathimerini.

He said the boarding house costs 270,000 euros a year to run and that this is covered completely by the Church.