Greek Archbishop Christodoulos has died, aged 69. He had been suffering from cancer for the last 7 months and on Monday 28 January finally lost the battle. There will be a three day wake before his funeral on Thursday.

He was born in 1939 as Christos Paraskevaidis and was the youngest head of the powerful Greek Orthodox church, when he was sworn in, in 1989.

Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said that since he had been in power, the church had become closer to society and that that had also helped to understand the problems of the younger generation.

He also agreed to Pope John Paul's visit in 2001 to help improve relations between the Catholic and Orthodox church. This was a great feat, seeing as the relationship between the two churches had been somewhat frosty since the Great Schism in 1054 that brought about a massive Christianity split.