Greek churchgoers on Sunday may well have been praying for a miracle.

Their near-bankrupt country needs every bit of help it can get, with Athens in a battle of almost biblical proportions to convince sceptical creditors it can stick to reform pledges in return for a bailout.

Yet even if a deal is reached, the effects of more austerity are feared.

“I think we will reach a conclusion,” said Kostas Stamatopoulos, a historian from Athens.

“But I’m not optimistic as there is a saying: ‘He went to buy hair but came out with a shaved head’. And effectively that is what will happen. All that we have achieved is to burden the people with much more serious measures than we would have had to agree to previously. But of course an agreement is better than no agreement at all.”

Many Greeks blame Germany for their country’s debt woes, and in past years some Germans have cancelled trips to Greece because of fear of hostility from the locals.

Not so, German tourist Henry Littig from Dues