Pope Francis, the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church, on Monday received Greece’s culture minister, Lina Mendoni, at the Vatican, days after three fragments of the iconic Parthenon atop the Acropolis were returned by the Holy See’s museums.
The repatriation of the fragments is an eminently symbolic gesture, given Athens’ long-standing demand to return the Parthenon Marble friezes back to Grecian soil and as close to the Athens Acropolis as possible. The fragments were officially donated to the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos and then handed over to the Greek state in a ceremony at the Acropolis Museum attended by the Greek prime minister, Mendoni and a top Vatican representative. The state-of-the-art museum beneath the southern slope of the Acropolis, and was purposely designed to house the Marbles once and if they are returned from the British Museum.
The Greek minister conveyed a letter of gratitude to Pope Francis from Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and presented the pontiff with an exact replica of a 1st century BC marble statue.
On his part, Pope Francis cited his deep respect for Greece as the cradle of the western civilization.
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