Residents of Argos in the Peloponnese on Saturday welcomed a delegation of Vatican clerics who returned the relics of their town’s patron saint, missing since the 15th century after a Catholic bishop took them to Rome.

Local churchmen, who began searching for the relics of Saint Peter of Argos in the early 1990s, finally traced them to a monastery chapel near Rome. “We had looked everywhere for them,” local Bishop Iakovos said.

Thousands of faithful thronged the streets and church bells sounded as the relics were carried into the local cathedral and put on display.

The relics were taken to Rome during the occupation of the Peloponnese by the Franks.

Relations between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, frosty for centuries, have improved in recent years, with both sides taking steps toward rapprochement.