Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his wife, Mareva, met Saturday with two global celebrities and newly minted Greek citizens.
Mitsotakis published he photo below to his Instagram account, showing Hollywood power couple Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson showing their brand new Greek passports.
“@ritawilson and @tomhanks are now proud Greek citizens,” Mitsotakis wrote.
The meeting took place on the island of Paros. Wilson, who is partly of Greek descent, and Hanks have long owned a house on the nearby island of Antiparos.
Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and their children were offered honorary Greek citizenship in 2019 in recognition of their efforts to provide relief to the victims of the deadly 2018 wildfires in Mati, Attica, which killed over 100 people.
“The Hanks family gave a signal all over the world for immediate relief actions to help our fire-stricken fellow citizens,” wrote the order signed on December 27, 2019. It added that in their effort to assist charity efforts they had provided “exceptional services to Greece.”
Honorary naturalization, under Greek law, may be granted to people “who have provided exceptional services to the country or whose naturalization serves the public interest.”
This article was first published on ekathimerini.com
