Vatican to return three Parthenon marble fragments to Greece

By AP 7 March 2023, 2:57 pm

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The marble head of a young man, a tiny fragment from the 2,500-year-old sculptured decoration of the Parthenon Temple on the ancient Acropolis, is displayed during a presentation to the press at the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, Nov. 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

The Vatican and Greece are finalizing a deal for the return of three sculpture fragments from the Parthenon that have been in the collection of the Vatican Museums for two centuries, the latest case of a Western museum bowing to demands for restitution.

The Vatican has termed the return an ecumenical “donation” to the Orthodox Christian archbishop of Athens and all Greece, not necessarily a state-to-state transfer. But it nevertheless puts pressure on the British Museum to conclude a deal with Greece over the fate of its much bigger collection of Parthenon sculptures.

The fragments are expected to arrive in Athens later this month, with a March 24 ceremony planned to receive them.

The British Museum has refused decades of appeals from Greece to return its much larger collection of Parthenon sculptures, which have been a centerpiece of the museum since 1816.