Peter VII, the spiritual leader of Greek Orthodox Christians in Africa, died Saturday when the army aircraft carrying him and 16 others plummeted into the Aegean Sea off northern Greece.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said at a news conference he sacked air force chief Panayotis Papanikolaou because of delays in launching a search and rescue operation after the crash, whose cause has not yet been established and which no-one survived.

Military officials admitted that a communications breakdown led to a delay in launching the rescue operation.

Accompanied by his brother and members of his entourage, Peter VII, a Cypriot, had been travelling from Athens to the monastic enclave of Mount Athos, one of his church's holiest places, when the Chinook helicopter went down.

The 55-year-old patriarch ministered to a flock of some 300,000 in Africa. The Orthodox church claims about 250 million followers across the world.

Peter VII was greatly respected for his work on improving Orthodox relations with the Coptic and Roman Catholic Churches, as well as for his many humanitarian commitments in Africa.

His body was the ninth to found by military and police personnel searching waters off the Halkidiki peninsula, a church spokesman told AFP.

His remains were flown to Athens, from where they would be flown to Cairo, where the Alexandria Patriarchate is headquartered.

There were still several bodies unaccounted for late Sunday.

Besides Peter VII, his non-cleric brother and five military crew members, the other passengers on board were two officials of the church of Alexandria, four other prelates and four other non-clerics.

A small armada of military and coastguard helicopters, planes, ships and patrol boats were continuing their search Sunday, a task made difficult by the depth of the Aegean at the crash site off the Halkidiki peninsula.

Prime Minister Karamanlis on Saturday said the deaths were a "great loss for the Orthodox church, Hellenism, and the armed forces."

Monsignor Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, spoke of his "great pain" following the accident.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was saddened to learn of the death and sent his condolences to the families the crash victims and to the Greek Orthodox community.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II also expressed his condolences, saying "this great loss has struck all of the Orthodox".

An inter-ministerial commission has been formed to investigate the cause of the crash. First indications seem to exclude an act of terrorism, ministerial sources said.

A speaker of Arabic and English, Peter VII he held a variety of positions in the Orthodox Church of Alexandria and across Africa before becoming patriarch.

Born in Cyprus on September 3, 1949, Peter entered a seminary at the age of 12 and, following theological studies in Greece, joined the Alexandrian church in Cairo in 1970.

In 1980, he took up office in Johannesburg, followed by Cameroon and West Africa in 1994.