Three 2,500-year-old pieces ‘donated’ to Greece’s Archbishop Hieronymos ii

On Friday, 16 December, the Holy Father, as a concrete sign of his sincere desire to continue the ecumenical journey of witness of Truth, decided to give to His Beatitude Hieronymos ii , Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, the three fragments of the Parthenon which for centuries have been carefully preserved in the Pontifical Collections and the Vatican Museums, and exhibited for millions of visitors from all over the world.

The three fragments include the head of a horse, the head of a boy and the head of a bearded male, which have been held by the Vatican since the 19th century. The head of the boy had been loaned to Greece for one year in 2008.