Pope Francis returns three fragments of Parthenon to Greece

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
25 Mar 2023 23:57

The fragments comprise the heads of a boy, a horse, and a bearded man carved 5,000 years ago.

A sculpture depicting the head of a bearded man (right), alongside the replica it now replaces (Petros Giannakouris/AP)

Pope Francis decided to right a wrong and returned three ornately carved fragments that once adorned the Parthenon to Greece from the Vatican.

The sculptures were unveiled on the upper floor of the Acropolis Museum on Friday.

“This act by Pope Francis is of historical significance and has a positive impact on multiple levels,” Greece’s spiritual leader, Archbishop Ieronymos II, told the crowded gallery of the Acropolis Museum where the works will be displayed. “My personal wish is that others will imitate it.”

A much larger collection of works removed from the temple in what are now viewed as highly contentious circumstances more than 200 years ago is still kept by the British Museum.

For more than two centuries, the repatriated artifacts were housed in the Vatican Museums

The fragments comprise the heads of a boy, a horse, and a bearded man carved 5,000 years ago.

Greece's Culture Minister, Lina Medoni, hailed the Pope's decision, saying, “Initiatives like these show … how the pieces of the Parthenon can be reunited, healing the wounds caused by barbaric hands so many years ago.”

The head of the Orthodox church agreed to give the artifacts to the Acropolis Museum after Francis announced that he wanted to donate them to the Iernymos as “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth."

Officials said the donation was religiously inspired. The Vatican Museums hold several other priceless artifacts that Indigenous groups want to be repatriated.

Athens has long demanded that artifacts acquired by the British Museum in 1816 be returned.

Rishi Sunak rejected any suggestion the treasures were on course to be returned to Athens. However, Greek officials are confident that London will feel pressured "to do the right thing."

“We are doubly grateful, and honored, that he has chosen to do this as the head of the Catholic church and not as the leader of the Vatican,” Acropolis Museum Director, Professor Nikos Stampolidis said. “In doing so he has spoken not just for the Holy See but for so many more people.”