Parthenon Censored
Tourists who venture into the architectural monstrosity that is Athen's Parthenon Museum will find that it is a good deal better on the inside than it is from the outside. The external view cannot help but remind the viewer of the glaring contrast between the classical beauty of ancient Greece and the concrete shoe-box that is its modern descendant. Inside, however, a room is a room and the various exhibits are tastefully - if unnaturally - displayed.
Before being let loose on the statuary, however, the visitor is treated to a short film that chronicles the progressive destruction of the Parthenon. Commissioned by the museum authorities, the film was made by Academy Award-winnning director Constantin Coasta-Gavras, who researched his subject and included every event that has impacted on the famous structure, from barbarian depredations in the third century AD, through Venetian shelling that blew up a Turkish powder store in the building, and, of course, Lord Elgin's famous rescue of the reliefs which bear his name.
Among the destructions featured is the iconoclastic zeal of black-robed figures who swarm over the building knocking heads off pagan gods and mutilating inadequately clad goddesses. These represent the Christian zealots who attacked the building in the 5th and 6th centuries when it was converted into a church.
There were gasps when the finished film was shown for the first time, for there was no doubt in anyone's mind who the black-robed figures were intended to represent. The problem is that the Greek Orthodox Church holds much the same position in modern Greece as the Roman Catholic one did in mediaeval Spain: a symbol of national resistance to invaders and oppressors, totally convinced of its own rightness, dogmatic and intolerant towards those outside it. Greeks who have the temerity to forsake Orthodoxy for a Protestant "sect" - or worse still, for Roman Catholicism - find themselves discriminated against at best and actively persecuted at worst. The Orthodox Church might not have invented the Inquisition yet, but the principles which actuated that deplorable institution are alive and well in modern Greece.
The result was that Museum Director Dimitris Pantermalis had a quiet word with a local film editing company and when the film went on display the barbarians and Lord Elgin were still there but the black-robed figures had mysteriously disappeared.
The rigid hierarchy of the Orthodox Church and its hold on the nation have not endeared it to the more progressive elements in society and as soon as the omission was noticed there was an outcry in the press - and Costa-Gavras was none too pleased when the matter was drawn to his attention. Faced with a storm of protest over this act of censorship Pantermalis hastily backed down, claiming that Costa-Gavras had assured him that the black-robed figures were not intended to represent members of the clergy. "Following this obvious clarification ... the film will continue to be shown," he said in a press report.
To its credit, the Orthodox Church appears not to have taken umbrage on this occasion, or at least, not publically. There was no official complaint, though church officials admit that they did express concern to the museum authorities. I suspect, however, that it was a case of a nod being as good as a wink and Pantermalis could take a hint as well as the next man. It will be interesting to see which version of the film is used in the long-term - whether the censored version is quietly restored once the fuss has died down.
black-robed figures Islam has no monopoly on religious fanaticism or vandalism. Even here in Britain, we mourn the loss of artistic treasures during the Commonwealth when Cromwell's fanatical puritans stabled their horses in parish churches and destroyed the mediaeval art-work that for them represented popery. Greek monks, ignorant, bigotted and violent, were a constant peril to anyone and anything that wasn't as narrow-minded as themselves: the most shocking example was the murder of the female mathematician and philosopher Hypatia (AD 370-415) who, with the connivance if not on the orders of Bishop Cyril, was dragged from her chariot by a mob of monks, taken into a nearby church and there scraped to death with oyster shells.
It makes the Taliban look positively civilised!
As a Christian myself, I'm all for strong beliefs and wish there were rather more of them in our secular society. I'm also well aware that secular societies can be - and have been - as intolerant and as cruel as the worst religious ones. Toleration and artistic appreciation are badly needed by all religions - Christianity, Islam, Atheism, Communism, the lot. Return
© Kendall K. Down 2009
