Nikos Filis

The government must take steps to promote the separation of Church and state, according to a SYRIZA minister who has come under fire over plans to to change the way religion is taught in school.

The 82nd Rectors' Synod in the northern port city of Thessaloniki got off to a rocky start Friday after a group of students stormed into the meeting of university chiefs to protest government policy in education.

A Greek flag is raised by members of the Presidential Guard next to the Parthenon on the hill of the Acropolis, during a ceremony on Wednesday marking the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of Athens from the Nazi occupation, which lasted from April 1941 through to October 1944.

Some 1,500 child refugees are to start lessons at Greek schools on Monday afternoon.

The lessons are to be held from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at 20 schools with another 20,000 refugee children to be inducted into classes at other schools in due course.

The government sought on Thursday to reassure Church officials that it is serious in its commitment to engage in dialogue over changes to the way courses on religion are taught at school.

Greece will begin schooling some 1,500 children of refugees stuck in the country on October 10, the education ministry said on Wednesday.

"Schooling refugee children falls under Greece's international obligations," Education Minister Nikos Filis told a news conference.

The Greek government has backed down from its initial harsh stance regarding the teaching of the new religious studies book in schools, after a two-hour meeting between PM Alexis Tsipras and the head of the Greek Church, Ieronymos, Wednesday, resulted in the two sides finding common grounds of understanding on the matter.

Emergency talks on Wednesday night between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the head of the Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, appeared to have healed a rift between the government and the Church over the structure and content of religion classes at the country's school.

Archbishop Ieronymos has requested a meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to discuss the government's plans to change the content and character of religious education in schools, reports said Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, a spokesman for the Church of Greece said that Ieronymos had turned down talks with Education Minister Nikos Filis on the issue.

Church of Greece spokesman Haris Konidaris on Wednesday said Archbishop Ieronymos will not hold talks with Education Minister Nikos Filis on the issue of religious classes at schools.

Filis recently said that any consultation on the changes proposed by the left-led government will take place after the end of the current academic year.