Timetable for pope’s visit to Lesvos announced

Pope Francis will arrive in Lesvos at 10.15 a.m. on Saturday and the leave the island at 3 p.m. after paying a visit to the Morias hotspot and meeting local officials and residents, as well as refugees.

According to the official schedule for the visit, the Pope will be accompanied by the head of the Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios, and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

During their visit to the Morias camp, all four will sign a joint declaration on the refugee crisis.

Ieronymos will arrive on the eastern Aegean island a day earlier in order to conduct a memorial service for the late Orthodox priest Father Efstratios Dimou, or Papa Stratis as he was known, who set up a charity on the island to provide help to migrants.

After that, the archbishop will inaugurate a social grocery store created in Papa Stratis’s memory. The priest died on Lesvos last September.