Britain has returned to Greece a 14th-century icon stolen from a Greek Orthodox monastery 30 years ago and found in the hands of a London-based collector, the Greek culture minstry said on Wednesday.

The religious painting of Christ`s Deposition from the Cross had been stolen from the monastery of St John the Baptist in Serres, northern Greece in 1978.

Greek authorities became aware of its whereabouts in 2002 when the collector, who is of Greek origin, tried to sell it through an art dealer.

Three years later, the Greeks alerted Scotland Yard when the collector refused to hand over the painting despite being shown evidence that it had been illegally smuggled out of the country, the ministry said.

British lawyers were also hired to represent the Greek state and succeeded in winning a court battle to reclaim the icon in September.

The icon will be returned to the monastery after undergoing restoration at the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens, as it had been painted over after its removal from the monastery, Culture Minister Michalis Liapis said.

Greece has lately stepped up efforts to reclaim antiquities and cultural objects smuggled out of the country in past centuries.

In recent months, it has succeeded in claims from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Shelby White collection in New York.

In September, Italy returned to Greece the `Palermo fragment,` a marble piece of the Athens Parthenon missing for nearly 200 years.

`The ministry is making a major effort on a daily basis to repatriate monuments that have fallen foul of criminal activity that plagues our country,` Liapis said on Wednesday.

But Greece`s greatest goal, the return of a large collection of sculptures from the Parthenon removed by Lord Elgin, the 19th century British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire occupying Greece at the time, remains elusive.

The British Museum which obtained the Parthenon Marbles from Elgin has refused to return them despite decades of Greek pressure.