ROME — The Vatican announced Friday that Pope Francis has decided to give three fragments of the Parthenon marbles held in the Vatican Museums back to Greece.
The marbles will be given to the Greek Orthodox Church rather than the Greek government, the Vatican said, in an effort to promote ecumenical ties between the two churches.
The gift is intended as a “concrete sign” of the pope’s “sincere desire to continue on the ecumenical journey of witnessing to the truth,” the Vatican communiqué said.
The three fragments of the Parthenon will go to His Beatitude Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, the communiqué stated, after being “carefully guarded for centuries in the Pontifical Collections and in the Vatican Museums and exposed to millions of visitors from all over the world.”
According to the Vatican Museums, the three fragments are of “Pentelic marble” and came into the Vatican in the 19th century. They are part of the decorative sculpture of the Parthenon, the temple built on the Acropolis at Athens by Pericles (447-432 BC).
The Greek government has been pushing the United Kingdom to return the so-called Elgin marbles that once stood in the Parthenon and now are displayed at the British Museum.
Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, took the 17 figures and part of a frieze in the early 19th century.
Britain insists that Elgin acquired the sculptures legally when Greece was ruled by the Ottomans whereas the Greek government contends they were stolen and wants them returned.