Vatican Returns Three Fragments of Parthenon Marbles to Greece

Three fragments of the Athens Parthenon, hosted for centuries in the Vatican collections and museums, will be returned to Greece after the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, signed the donation protocol in Rome on March Tuesday.

The protocol was signed, among others, by Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, President of the Government of the Vatican City State, the representative of the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Protopriest Emmanuel Papamikoulis and the Director of Museums and Cultural Heritage of the Vatican, Barbara Jatta.

"The uniquely important and spiritual and fraternal gesture of Pope Francis towards the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymous shows in the best possible way how culture can make a decisive contribution to dialogue, peace, reconciliation of the communities," said Mendoni.

According to the Ministry of Culture, the three fragments will be presented on March 24 at a special event at the Acropolis Museum. The first depicts a horse's head from the west pediment, the second is a man's head holding a disk, and the third, the head of a bearded man.

The initiative to return the fragments came from Pope Francis who decided on December 16, 2022, to donate them to the Greek Orthodox Church leader, the Archbishop of Athens.

"The Pope is donating the three fragments from the Vatican Museums without asking for anything in return; this is important, a move that reminds us how important it is to return all the architectural sculptures of the Parthenon to Athens. This move is important to promote precisely because it is a donation. After all, lately, the government has been promoting exchanges and loans as a solution," Despina Koutsoubas, president of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, SEA, told BIRN.<...