The Pledge and the Parthenon

Yes, we heard it: a statement that equates the "Pledge to the Nation" - a massive church envisaged by some to mark Greece's salvation from the Turkish yoke - and the Parthenon: "The construction of this monumental church, as an expression of gratitude to God for our liberation from the Turks, will be visible all over Athens and equal to the Parthenon."

Let's not dwell on this statement too long. First, because the issue of the Pledge, which keeps cropping up every so often ever since the 19th century - like bankruptcy in Greece - has been put back on the shelf, and second, because we recently dodged another proposal for the "conquest" of the Parthenon by foreigners. In the first case, 16 lawmakers with New Democracy withdrew their support of a scheme to build the Pledge on the orders of party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis. In the latter, the Central Archaeological Council...