The President of the Hellenic Republic Karolos Papoulias was received on March 27 by the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, in the Vatican, where the two men held a meeting. "Congratulations for your President. He is a wise man," said the Roman Pontiff after the meeting, which exceeded by far the regular duration of the fifteen-minute meetings held with heads of states or governments.

"I had a very interesting and cordial meeting with the head of the Catholic Church," said Papoulias, following the meeting with Pope Francis and the State Secretary of the Vatican City, Pietro Parolin. "I think he is an enlightened head of the Catholic Church with great social sensitivity, which is also found in his speeches. I think he is a Pope of peace, humanity and solidarity," added the Greek President.

An exhibition celebrating ancient ties between Greece and Italy, and their legacy to European culture and unity, opened its doors on March 28 at Rome’s Presidential Quirinale Palace. The exhibition "Classicism and Europe: The European destiny of Greece and Italy," which was inaugurated by the President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias, and his Italian counterpart, Giorgio Napolitano, features twenty-five masterpieces from Greece’s and Italy’s major museums and aspires to illustrate the significance of the Greek and the Roman world in shaping European civilization and Europe’s contemporary cultural identity.

The exhibition celebrates the Greek Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2014, and its successor, the Italian Presidency during the second half of the year, dubbed " Year of the Mediterranean" by the two presidencies. It will run until July 15 in Rome, and will then be transferred to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.