HERAKLION, Greece, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Greek police have recovered a 700-year-old Byzantine icon of the Virgin Mary stolen from a convent on the southern Greek peninsula of Peloponnese.
The recovery followed the arrest of two Romanians, aged 27 and 28, who have lived in Greece for the last seven years.
One of the men, arrested in Heraklion, the capital of the Greek island of Crete, after a tip, told police the icon was hidden in a house southeast of the cliffside convent in Elona, the BBC reported.
Nuns at the convent discovered the theft of the icon -- a 20-by-16-inch painting of Mary holding the infant Jesus, valued at $2.5 million -- Aug. 18.
Worshippers believe the icon has healing powers and had put up a reward of $640,000 for information leading to the thieves.
