Pope removes Greek sculptures from Vatican collection to return them to Parthenon

Pope Francis has decided to return to Greece three 2,500-year-old pieces from the Parthenon, the Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, which have been in the papal collections of the Vatican Museums for more than a century.

In a statement released on Friday, the Vatican said the pope would hand the items over to Jerome II, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, as a gesture of ecumenical dialogue by the Roman Catholic Church.

The Parthenon, located in the capital of Greece, was completed in the 5th century BC and has decorative friezes with some of the most representative examples of ancient Greek sculpture.

According to the Vatican Museums website, one of the pieces that will be returned is the sculpture of a head of a horse that pulled Athena’s chariot on the west side of the temple. The others will be the head of a boy and the head of a bearded man. The items have been in the Vatican since the 19th century.

The pieces will be returned as London and Athens claim ownership of the so-called Elgin marbles, which made up roughly half of the 160-metre frieze in the Parthenon and which are currently housed in the British Museum in the English capital.

The Greek press reported earlier this month that representatives of the museum and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were holding secret talks about the possible return of the marbles to Athens.

After the negotiations came to a head, however, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the Conservative Party reacted by saying that the British Museum is legally prohibited from fragmenting its collection.

The so-called Elgin marbles were taken from the Parthenon in the early 19th century by British diplomat and ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Lord Elgin — Greece has repeatedly asked for the sculptures to be returned since independence in 1832.

On Friday, Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni expressed gratitude to Pope Francis for what she called a “generous decision”. In a statement, she said that she supports the efforts of her country’s government to have the marbles in the British Museum returned.

In March, UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency, asked Greece and Britain to reach an agreement.