{"id":145208,"date":"2025-09-18T10:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T10:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/145208\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T10:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T10:45:08","slug":"protesters-gather-at-national-gallery-to-decry-anti-christian-artworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/145208\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters gather at National Gallery to decry \u2018anti-Christian\u2019 artworks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Protesters<\/p>\n

Protesters wave crosses, flags and banners and shout slogans outside the National Gallery in Athens on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, as police form a cordon preventing them from entering the institution. [Giorgos Zachos\/InTime News]<\/p>\n

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the National Gallery in Athens on Wednesday evening to demand the removal of a series of engravings by visual artist Christophoros Katsadiotis they say are offensive to the Greek Orthodox faith.<\/p>\n

The protest was organized by Ellinikos Palmos (Greek Pulse), a movement recently founded by Nikos Papadopoulos, a former MP of the ultra-conservative Niki party who had forcibly taken down and smashed the artist\u2019s same works<\/a> when they were first put on display in March.<\/p>\n

Shouting slogans like \u201cOut with the Antichrists from Greece\u201d and accusing the National Gallery of showcasing \u201cabominations\u201d that mock religion, the protesters demanded the removal of the four controversial pieces, titled \u201cIcon 1\u201d, \u201cIcon 16\u201d, \u201cIcon 17\u201d and \u201cSaint Christopher,\u201d which were put back on display in May after being repaired.<\/p>\n

The incident in March sparked a wave of threats against the gallery and the artist, who defended his work as a \u201cpoetic\u201d comment on the influence of religion in Greek society<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one, naturally, is obliged to agree with me, ideologically or esthetically. But this is my point of view,\u201d the Paris-based Greek artist said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Protesters wave crosses, flags and banners and shout slogans outside the National Gallery in Athens on Wednesday, September…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,5343,1120,96,443,27157,56,54,55,66997],"class_list":{"0":"post-145208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-protest","15":"tag-religion","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom","19":"tag-visual-arts"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}