The new Acropolis Museum yesterday reversed a controversial decision to cut a short film by prominent Greek-French director Costa-Gavras that allegedly provoked anger among the ranks of the Orthodox Church.

The video, which informs visitors about the history of the Parthenon and shows early Christians hacking away at the monument, is to be restored after the filmmaker offered a “self-explanatory clarification,” the museum’s director, Dimitris Pandermalis, said. “Mr Gavras explains that in these scenes that he did not show or mean to say that the destruction was done by priests but by the people of that time,” Pandermalis said.

The decision by Pandermalis came a day after the Greek Helsiniki Monitor, a nongovernmental rights organization, filed an injunction against the museum, demanding that the video be restored and stressing the museum visitors’ right to view the director’s uncensored work.