Vatican delegation to visit Greek archbishop ahead of fragments reunification ceremony

Archbishop Hieronymos of Athens and All Greece will receive a four-member delegation from the Vatican at the Archdiocese of Athens at 14:30 on Friday.

The meeting will be held ahead of the ceremony on Friday to return the three marble fragments from the Parthenon to the Acropolis Museum.

Kept at the Vatican Museums, the three pieces were gifted personally by Pope Francis to the archbishop, and an agreement to that effect was signed in Rome by Greek and Vatican officials on March 7. The reunification event will be held at at the Museum at 17:30 on Friday, in the presence of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Archdiocese said.

The Catholic delegation is headed by Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, and includes Under-Secretary Monsignor Andrea Palmieri, Director of the Vatican Museums Dr Barbara Jatta, and Archbishop Jan Romeo Pawłowski, Apostolic Nuncio to Greece.