The Greek Ministry of Culture has decided to cut the “outrageous” scenes of the 13-minute documentary, created by the world-famous Greek director Kostas Gavras, picturing the damages that the Acropolis has suffered during its 25- centurial history. As GRReporter already informed you, the Greek Orthodox Church has protested fiercely against a scene of just couple of seconds, which uses computer animation to depict angry priests in robes, destroying the Parthenon’s ornaments in the VIII century A.D. The Holy Synod has urged the Minister of Culture - Antonis Samaras – to cut the above mentioned scenes from the film. The conservative Minister from the New Democracy party has yielded to the church’s arguments and has ordered for the film to be cut.
Following the decision of the Ministry, the famous director commented: “It is sad and shameful for Greek politicians and EU members of the XXI century, to give way to the will of the Church and censure a film, which is purely based on historically proven facts.” Kostas Gavras explained that the film tried to show how during the ages, the Parthenon has suffered most from the hand of man, and if it wasn’t for men, maybe it would have remained the same as it was in the times of Pericles. “It is indeed a fact of history that the early Christian priests were shocked by the nudity of the Phidias sculptures adorning the Parthenon, and destroyed them intentionally.” The artist concludes that “With its latest reaction, the Church proves the argument that it has barely changed since the dark Medieval times.”
The 13 minute documentary is part of the educational program of the Acropolis Museum, and has already been showed in front of a big audience in the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2004, as a part of the cultural Olympics, organized together with the Athens 2004 summer Olympic Games. People interested in the uncensored version of the film could see it at the zougla.gr website or at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-RXc_wukeo
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