The Greek Parliament today elected a woman as the republic's president, for the first time in the country's history, an experienced magistrate as an environmental rights specialist.

Ekaterini Sakellaropoulou is officially the next president of the neighboring Hellenic state.

Sakellaropoulou, 63, won the backing of 261 deputies in the 300-seat parliament. She will serve as president for five years starting March 13, the date when the term of the current president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, ends.

She currently holds the position of President of the Council of State, the highest court in Greece.

The procedure for electing the Greek president is passed by parliament where the candidate must receive at least 200 votes in the first and second ballots, 180 in the third and at least 151 in the last 300 of the 300 deputies.

Ekaterini Sakellaropoulou was born in Thessaloniki in 1956. She graduated with a law degree from the University of Athens and was subsequently appointed to the Supreme Council of State where she went through a series of duties. She has pursued constitutional and administrative law at the postgraduate level at the Sorbonne University in Paris.