Greece’s struggle for the repatriation of the Parthenon Sculptures began as soon as the Greek State was established. It was internationalized in the 1980s by Melina Mercouri, with a formal request to the British Museum and UNESCO. Our country’s position has from the outset been national, unanimous, clear and unchanged.

The violent and destructive stripping of the Sculptures from the monument and their removal from their physical and conceptual environment was against the applicable laws, the common sense of justice, and the morals of the time when it occurred. Today, it continues to be contrary to national and international law, international agreements and conventions, and the commonly accepted principles and concepts regarding the protection and management of cultural heritage.

Since July 2019, we at the Ministry of Culture and Sports have been working systematically and silently for the national goal of the return and reunification of the architectural Sculptures of the Parthenon in Athens. The results of this strategy are already tangible. The issue of the return and reunification of the Sculptures has gained new momentum internationally.

The framework for their return was set by the recent Decision (September 2021) of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Commission for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its countries of origin. According to this Decision, UNESCO recognizes that the Greek demand is ethical and fair, while determining that the issue of the return of the Sculptures is inter-governmental and not a matter for the British Museum, as Britain continues to maintain.

The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has kept the issue in the global spotlight when he presented the case for reuniting the Parthenon Sculptures to the British Prime Minister. We recently welcomed the return of the Fagan fragment in Athens from the Salinas Museum in Palermo. This is a significant event, made even more so by the intention of the Sicilian government to seek the amendment of Italy’s rules on cultural heritage so that the fragment can remain permanently in Greece.

At the same time, the most recent opinion poll, in November 2021, showed that 60% of the British public support the return of the Sculptures, while some of the most important and most influential international media, support or have come round to the Greek position. The recent example of the Times is the most notable case in point. London’s prestigious, historic, and conservative newspaper changed its fifty-year stance and emphatically argued that the Sculptures be returned to Athens.

One thing that bolsters the Greek demand is the fact that global conditions have changed in relation to the treatment of cultural goods that have been stolen and forcibly exported from their countries of origin. We are making the most of this favourable climate surrounding the case of the Sculptures and are intensifying our efforts.

We are therefore delighted to welcome Hellenic Post’s “Sculptures of the Parthenon” commemorative set of stamps. If the wounded monument – a symbol of Western civilization – could speak, it would demand that the Parthenon Sculptures be reunified in Athens so that they can be seen together under the light of the Attica sky at the Acropolis Museum. It is this demand that these four exceptional works of art will carry around the world.

The return of the Parthenon sculptures is a dream of national importance, demonstrating how great the hope is for the long-awaited reunification of a mutilated world heritage site. This is not simply the legitimate wish of all Greeks, but a demand that touches every human being, regardless of nationality, who respects the glorious monuments that history has bequeathed to today’s world.

It is a universal and always timely vision that espouses the values of justice, national identity and memory, seeking the ultimate resolution of an issue that has remained in limbo for far too long.

True to its social role, Hellenic Post has marked every form of cultural expression of our country over the last two centuries with a wealth of philatelic works, reflecting Greece’s entire history from ancient times to the present through stamps that have made their own history. Key points in this history, people who have marked its development, works by world famous artists, events that have defined the nation’s dream, all these – and much more – comprise the journey taken by Greek stamps as they have taken our homeland around the whole world. And on this journey, the time has come to add the pressing demand of so many decades, the return of the Parthenon sculptures.

Reunite Parthenon: this is the message we are sending to the whole world. Our goal is to bolster the demand for reunification, to take it to every corner of the globe, and to strengthen the universal vision that must become a reality.

Bring the stone you can, whether large or small

The words of the poet eloquently sum up the struggle of the Greek people for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from London to their homeland, to be reunited with their other half in the new Acropolis Museum.

This journey, and everyone’s efforts, whether large or small, began with the founding of the modern Greek state, continued with Melina Mercouri, and from there to the recent turning point and international vindication with UNESCO’s unanimous decision of 29 September 2021 recognizing that the return of the Sculptures from the British Museum to the Acropolis Museum is an intergovernmental issue and that it is right, fair and ethical for them to return to Athens. This will restore the body of the Parthenon to its entirety so that humanity will be able to see the symbol of its civilization united and whole, at least insofar as this is possible given the desecrations they have suffered over the centuries; because the masterpieces from the Parthenon are not free-standing sculptures but parts of a whole, of the most perfect architecture, where the material is permeated with genius and the real became ideal and eternal.

The UNESCO decision was raised at the highest intergovernmental level by the Greece’s prime minister both at the organisation’s 75th anniversary celebrations in Paris and at his meeting with the British prime minister in November 2021 in London. It has been continued by the Ministry of Culture and the Acropolis Museum with a series of initiatives that in a short space of time have included the grant of ten fragments from the National Archaeological Museum and immediately afterwards, the deposit of the Fagan fragment from the Antonino Salinas Museum in Palermo, accompanied by an announcement by the Italian Minister of Culture of his commitment to it being kept permanently at the Acropolis Museum, indicating the path that London and the British Museum should follow for the return of the architectural sculptures of the  Parthenon.

The ongoing effort for smaller or larger parts of the Parthenon to finally find their place in the Acropolis Museum, where they belong, has been bolstered today with another act that is international in character:  the issue of a highly symbolic commemorative set of Hellenic Post stamps, “The Parthenon sculptures”.

The four stamps show figures from the pediments, the metopes and the frieze of the Parthenon, figures mutilated and divided between the Museum of their homeland, which protects them and displays them in all their glory, and the Museum that keeps them imprisoned in a far-off land. The exquisite stamps indelibly convey the “rightness, fairness and morality” of UNESCO’s decision and the efforts of the Greek people for the reunification of the sculptures at the monumental symbol of world culture, the Parthenon, and will spread this message to every corner of the world that they travel to.

Warmest congratulations to everyone involved in this exceptional and beautifully produced piece of work that is a milestone in the history of Hellenic Post.