The Holy See announced this morning that Pope Francis “has decided to donate to His Beatitude Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, the three fragments of the Parthenon, which for centuries have been carefully kept at the Pontifical Collections and in the Vatican Museums and exhibited to millions of visitors from all over the world.”

It is, the Vatican statement explains, a “concrete sign of the sincere desire to continue on the ecumenical path of witness to the Truth.”

Pope Francis and Ieronymos II have met several times these years: the Pope also visited the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church during his visit to Athens a year ago.

Most of the Parthenon marbles are kept at the British Museum, London. For years, the authorities of Greece have been asking the British government for their return. A request that has so far repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. Even recently, both the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, and the Director of the Acropolis Museum, Nikos Stampolidis, reiterated their request to London for their return.