ATHENS, Greece — A scene from an animated film shown to visitors at the new Acropolis Museum that depicts Christian priests destroying parts of the Parthenon has been deleted following protests by the Greek Orthodox Church.
The creator of the segment, Greek-born French filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras, has demanded that his name be taken off the film credits in protest.
“The priests used to destroy ancient temples. Now they want to remove scenes from a film,” Costa-Gavras told Greece’s Mega TV channel. “This is the kind (of censorship) that used to happen in the former Soviet Union.”
Costa-Gavras is known mainly for French-language films with political themes, such as “Z” and “State of Siege.”
Costa-Gavras’ 1-minute, 40-second segment depicting the damage done to Parthenon over the centuries — from marauding Germanic warriors in 267 A.D. to the removal of a large part of the frieze by British diplomat Lord Elgin in early 19th century — was part of a larger piece produced for the 2004 Athens Olympics and had been incorporated into a 13-minute film shown to museum visitors, narrating the history of the Parthenon from its inception to the present day.
The animated segment showed figures clad in black climbing up ladders and destroying part of the Parthenon frieze; the scene referred to well-documented episodes of destruction that took place in the early Byzantine period (5th-8th centuries A.D.), when Christians often demolished monuments and temples belonging to the old pagan era.
Many parts from those temples were used to build churches. The Parthenon itself suffered some damage but was spared a worse fate by being converted into a church.
Church officials contended the film misrepresented the attitude of the Greek Orthodox Church toward Greece’s ancient heritage.
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