Pope Francis has decided to send back to Greece the three fragments of the Parthenon Sculptures held by the Vatican Museums.

The first fragment belongs to one of the horses of Athena's quadruped.

More specifically, in a statement, the Vatican described this gesture as a "gift" from the Pope to His Beatitude Jerome II, the Orthodox Christian archbishop of Athens and all Greece, "as a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow the ecumenical path of truth" .

The Vatican becomes the latest Western state to return its fragments of the Parthenon marbles to the British Museum.

The second fragment is the head of a teenager. It is a face of the sculptures which was outside the nave of the church and brought bread, which was offered during the Panathenaia.

But the Vatican statement shows that the Holy See wanted to make clear that it was not a bilateral decision to return the marbles from the Vatican state to Greece, but rather a religiously inspired donation. The statement may have been made to avoid setting a precedent that could affect other exhibits in the Vatican Museums.

The third fragment is a bearded male head, which belongs to the south metope, where the Centaur Battle was depicted.

This is the second, indirect but important, positive intervention coming from the Italian side in the matter of the return of the Parthenon Sculptures after the definitive repatriation, last June, to the Acropolis Museum, of the "Fagan fragment" from the A. Salinas Museum of Palermo.