The Vatican to ‘Donate’ Parthenon Marbles to the Greek Orthodox Church

• The Vatican will return 3 Parthenon fragments to the Greek Orthodox Church as a “donation.”
• The Vatican Museum has stored the fragments considering that 1803, when Greece states they had been stolen.
• For decades, Greece has sought to regain Parthenon marbles from The Vatican and British Museums.

Right after more than 200 a long time, the Vatican has agreed to return fragments of marble that were being stolen from the Parthenon back to the Greek Orthodox Church.

The return of the fragments, which the Vatican is contacting a “donation,” is a important earn in an ongoing campaign by Greece to get back artifacts taken from the Parthenon and retained in The Vatican and British museums.

Although Pope Francis in the beginning considered a long-term mortgage of the fragments to Greece, he “resolved to donate the operates outright,” Giandomenico Spinola, the head of the Vatican Museums’ archaeology office explained to The New York Instances, incorporating that — as a donation — the return ought to be viewed outside of any discussion on the restitution of extra marbles housed at the British Museum.

“The Holy Father Francis, as a concrete sign of his sincere need to carry on the ecumenical journey of witness of Fact, has determined to give to His Beatitude Hieronymos II, archbishop of Athens and all Greece, the three fragments of the Parthenon which for hundreds of years have been thoroughly preserved in the Pontifical Collections and the Vatican Museums, and exhibited to tens of millions of guests from all about the globe,” browse the entirety of a temporary assertion on the subject matter launched by the Vatican on Friday.

The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sporting activities in a assertion referred to as the pope’s conclusion “generous” and expressed hope the return of the fragments would put pressure on the British Museum to do the same.

The Vatican and Church of Greece did not promptly answer to Insider’s requests for comment.

Greece has long sought the return of artifacts taken from the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena situated on the Athenian Acropolis, an historic citadel, now one of the most popular historic archaeological web sites in the environment.  Marble fragments were taken from the historical web site by Lord Elgin, then British ambassador to the central government of the Ottoman Empire. Elgin marketed the relics to the Vatican Museum in 1803 and additional fragments to the British Museum in 1816. 

“Our situation is quite crystal clear,” The Guardian described Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Key Minister, reported. “The marbles had been stolen in the 19th century they belong in the Acropolis Museum and we have to have to go over this problem in earnest.” 

The British Museum holds in its collection 15 metopes, 17 pedimental figures, and 75 meters of the first 160-meter-lengthy frieze, a prolonged, attractive, horizontal panel taken from the identical framework as the fragments from the Vatican.

Even though there are fragments in Paris, Copenhagen, Munich, Vienna, Palermo, and Würzburg — in addition to the Vatican and the British Museum — about 50 percent of the surviving authentic sculptures are housed in the British Museum.

British Museum officers have managed the fragments were being “eradicated from rubble” of the Parthenon, not eliminated from the temple’s surface and were consequently legally acquired, The Guardian noted.

“Over the years, Greek authorities and the international scientific neighborhood have shown with unshakeable arguments the legitimate occasions encompassing the removal of the Parthenon sculptures,” Greece’s lifestyle minister, Lina Mendoni, reported in a assertion to The Guardian. “Lord Elgin utilised illicit and inequitable usually means to seize and export the Parthenon sculptures, without having serious authorized authorization to do so, in a blatant act of serial theft.”

The British Museum did not instantly react to Insider’s ask for for remark.