The Vatican is returning Parthenon sculptures to the Greek Orthodox Church as a 'donation' more than 200 years after they were stolen from the country. But other European museums with pieces of the ancient temple continue to insist the artifacts were legally obtained.

• The Vatican will return three Parthenon fragments to the Greek Orthodox Church as a "donation."
• The Vatican Museum has kept the fragments since 1803, when Greece says they were stolen.

After more than 200 years, the Vatican has agreed to return fragments of marble that were stolen from the Parthenon back to the Greek Orthodox Church.

The return of the fragments, which the Vatican is calling a "donation," is a major win in an ongoing campaign by Greece to regain artifacts taken from the Parthenon and kept in The Vatican and British museums.

While Pope Francis initially considered a long-term loan of the fragments to Greece, he "decided to donate the works outright," Giandomenico Spinola, the head of the Vatican Museums' archaeology department told The New York Times, adding that — as a donation — the return should be seen outside of any debate on the restitution of additional marbles housed at the British Museum.

"The Holy Father Francis, as a concrete sign of his sincere desire to continue the ecumenical journey of witness of Truth, has 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 to millions of visitors from all over the world," read the entirety of a brief statement on the subject released by the Vatican on Friday.

The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports in a statement called the pope's decision "generous" and expressed hope the return of the fragments would put pressure on the British Museum to do the same.

The Vatican and Church of Greece did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Greece has long sought the return of artifacts taken from the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena located on the Athenian Acropolis, an ancient citadel, now one of the most famous ancient archaeological sites in the world. Marble fragments were taken from the historical site by Lord Elgin, then British ambassador to the central government of the Ottoman Empire. Elgin sold the relics to the Vatican Museum in 1803 and additional fragments to the British Museum in 1816.

"Our position is very clear," The Guardian reported Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, said. "The marbles were stolen in the 19th century; they belong in the Acropolis Museum and we need to discuss this issue in earnest."

The British Museum holds in its collection 15 metopes, 17 pedimental figures, and 75 meters of the original 160-meter-long frieze, a long, decorative, horizontal panel taken from the same structure as the fragments from the Vatican.

While there are fragments in Paris, Copenhagen, Munich, Vienna, Palermo, and Würzburg — in addition to the Vatican and the British Museum — about half of the surviving original sculptures are housed in the British Museum.

British Museum officials have maintained the fragments were "removed from rubble" of the Parthenon, not removed from the temple's surface and were thus legally acquired, The Guardian reported.

"Over the years, Greek authorities and the international scientific community have demonstrated with unshakeable arguments the true events surrounding the removal of the Parthenon sculptures," Greece's culture minister, Lina Mendoni, said in a statement to The Guardian. "Lord Elgin used illicit and inequitable means to seize and export the Parthenon sculptures, without real legal permission to do so, in a blatant act of serial theft."

The British Museum did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.