Acropolis Museum, with blessing, is set to open

About 1,500 years after Christian zealots vandalized the Parthenon’s pagan sculptures, Greece’s Orthodox Church on Wednesday formally blessed the new Acropolis Museum, set to open this weekend after years of delays.

Standing near the remains of an inaugural sacrifice for a 3rd century BC town house excavated under the citadel, priests burned incense and chanted blessings for the building where Greece hopes one day to display the Elgin -- or Parthenon -- Marbles.

The $180-million museum will be officially inaugurated Saturday. Foreign heads of state and government are expected to attend. It will open to visitors Sunday, at a nominal $1.40 charge.

Officials say the glass-and-concrete museum, about 400 yards from the Acropolis, will boost Greece’s old but fruitless bid for the return of the 2,500-year-old sculptures, displayed in the British Museum for nearly two centuries since their removal from the site.

Athens says the sculptures were stolen from a work of art so important that its surviving pieces should all be exhibited together.

But the British Museum counters that it legally owns its collection, and displays it free of charge in an international cultural context.

Culture Minister Antonis Samaras said the new museum would turn public opinion in favor of the Greek campaign.

“It is a catalyst for the return of the Parthenon Marbles,” he said during a media preview Wednesday. “This is a symbol of modern Greece which . . . honors its past with works comparable to those of our ancestors.”

Spreading across five levels, the museum provides an airy setting for some of the best surviving works of classical sculpture that once adorned the marble Acropolis temples.