Second senior bishop dies of Covid-19

The Metropolitan Bishop of Kastoria, Seraphim, died from complications caused by Covid-19 at the age of 61 on Tuesday, becoming the second senior Greek cleric to succumb to the virus.

Seraphim tested positive in early December but as his health deteriorated, he was admitted to the 424 General Military Hospital of Thessaloniki, where he was intubated on December 20.

The late bishop was born in 1959 in the village of Agnandero, in the region of Karditsa, central Greece.

Several senior clerics of the Greek Orthodox Church have been hit with the virus during the pandemic. Metropolitan Bishop Ioannis of Lagadas, 62, died in mid-November.

Archbishop Ieronymos, the 82-year-old head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, was hospitalised for nearly two weeks.