The most precious icon of Russian antiquity – "The Trinity", painted by Andrei Rublev (fifteenth century) – is to be handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church by virtue of a "decision" of President Vladimir Putin. The transfer, which is opposed by many restorers and art experts across the country, may be fatal to this art treasure.
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In addition to this work, and also by Putin's will, the Orthodox Church will receive the sarcophagus of the medieval prince Alexander Nevsky (thirteenth century), an exquisite silver work of the eighteenth century, which is preserved in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. "The Trinity", meanwhile, is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow since it was confiscated by the Bolsheviks in the twenties of the last century.
The Russian Orthodox Church has supported Putin's war in Ukraine, blessed soldiers and promised them salvation if they perish on the battlefield. The symbiosis between the State and the religious institution, which has basically replaced the Communist Party of the USSR as an ideology, is close, but this transfer of cultural goods belonging to the Russian people goes much further, since it not only instrumentalizes the religious feelings of the faithful, but also seems to respond to an obscurantist conception of religion.
In a press release, the Patriarchy of the Orthodox Church assures that Putin acted in "response to the numerous requests of the Orthodox faithful", although in fact there is no record of such requests at present. Patriarch Kirill, for his part, claimed that he had merely asked the head of state to lend him the icon for two weeks to be exhibited in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, on the occasion of the feast of the Trinity celebrated on June 4. "We could only dream that this relic would be returned to the church so that our people could pray before this sacred object," Cyril said. He added that Putin had personally made the decision to return the icon and sarcophagus.
Alexander Nevsky is considered the protector of Russian soldiers. On the occasion of Orthodox Easter, this year Putin visited his military commanders who warring on the Ukrainian front and gave them a copy of an icon. In the past, at difficult times for Russia, its leaders have turned to the Orthodox Church for social cohesion. In 1943 Stalin changed his religious policy and exhorted the Orthodox to mobilize spiritually in the name of the USSR's victory against Nazism.
Putin's powers as head of state do not include transfers such as those he has just made." The President of the Russian Federation has no competence to dispose of objects belonging to the State, included in the Russian museum funds (...) and never had them," writes Andrei Vorobev, who was head of the state catalog of the museum fund of the Russian Federation and deputy director of the Tretyakov Gallery. The expert is convinced that the presidential decision has opened Pandora's box and that "it will necessarily have a continuation." According to various laws and guidelines on Russian cultural funds, the transfer of state cultural heritage to the church requires that the transferred property is not the property of the Russian people as a whole and that a special "responsible custody" agreement be formalized under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture.
In this case, the delivery is made on the basis of a presidential "decision", which so far, as far as is known, has not been formalized as an edict, but no one doubts that the delivery, theoretically temporary, will be formalized at all corresponding levels and that cultural institutions will submit to the president's wish, whatever the considerations of those responsible.
Elizaveta Likhacheva, the new director of the Tretyakov gallery, has warned of the serious risks of "The Trinity", which consists of "three tables badly fastened together". "The Trinity is the most important Russian contribution to Christian iconography" and the essence in it "is not the religious sense but the artistic sense," Likhacheva told the Tass news agency.
"Today the sacred significance of the monument is more important than its artistic value," said Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky. "The Hermitage starts from the assumption that, in the current geopolitical moment for the destinies of the country and social peace in it, the union of the relics with the sarcophagus (...) It takes on a special meaning," he explained. In 1922, Nevsky's sarcophagus was separated from his remains, which after passing through the Museum of Atheism in communist times, are now -- as relics -- in the custody of the Orthodox Church.
In November 2009, Piotrovsky described as "abnormal" that "churches ask (museums) for the return of their icons," as quoted by the Rosbalt agency. In 2010, the director of the Hermitage said that, thanks to museums, ecclesiastical monuments had been saved by being transformed into museum exhibition objects. "The rest either disappeared or went to private collections." Public opinion and experts prevented the Ministry of Culture from transferring the icon of the Trinity.
Russian art curators have been warning for many years that works of art cannot be delivered from museums, which are in special conditions of conservation, with stable temperatures and humidity, and in the case of the Trinity in a special glass chamber.
The Trinity has only left the Tretyakov Gallery twice, when it was evacuated during World War II and last year when it was temporarily ceded to the Orthodox Church for a few days. Upon their return to the usual location, the curators of the gallery found about 60 flaws in the work.
Officially Russia is a secular state and the delivery of the Trinity to the Orthodox Church is done by sacrificing its artistic value in favor of its religious value, since the Orthodox Church sees these works above all as a sacred product, regardless of their artistic value. Under legislation enacted in the nineties, the State gradually returns to the Orthodox part of the real estate assets they owned before the confiscation of their property by the communist regime. The state does not always satisfy the demands of the Orthodox Church, which asks for much more than it can assimilate.
While the Russian landscape is still populated by many old temples in ruins, the Orthodox Church constructs new buildings, often of dubious aesthetic taste. In St. Petersburg these constructions respond to the motto "a church for every courtyard of neighbors". Moscow, for its part, promoted a construction program called "two hundred churches."
The transferred objects will be preserved in accordance with the requirements of the Tretyakov and the Hermitage, according to the chairman of the culture council of the patrioty, Metropolitan of Pskov, Tikhon (named Shevkunov), considered Putin's spiritual director.
For communists, culture took the place of religion. Today in Russia religion replaces culture. It's idiotic," said film director Alexander Sokurov.
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