The icon of Andrey Rublev “Trinity” is left in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior until July 18

The Russian Orthodox Church has spread a message that the stay of the icon “Holy Trinity” by Andrei Rublev in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is extended until July 18. The date of return of the icon to the museum is thus shifted by a month: the current agreement with the State Tretyakov Gallery assumes that the icon should again be in the museum depository no later than June 19th. comments Sergey Hodnev.

Everything is about the same as at the beginning of the current epic with the “Trinity” – May 15. Again, a brief informational message on the website of the Moscow Patriarchate, again a link to the instruction of the President of the Russian Federation to transfer the icon to the free use of the Russian Orthodox Church: there are absolutely no details about this instruction (in what form it was given, whether it had the status of an official paper, how it was motivated, how formulated) never appeared. Next in message with the same lapidarity it says: “A decision has been made to extend the stay of the icon of the Holy Trinity in the Cathedral Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow until July 18, 2023, the day of the celebration of the memory of St. Sergius of Radonezh” – and here again there are solid questions. Who accepted? On what basis is it taken? How should this mysterious decision be linked to the official contract, where this period is indicated in black and white – two weeks from June 4 to 18?

It is worth recalling that initially the issue of timing and logistics did not look quite definite: on May 15, the patriarchate announced that the Trinity would be in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for a year, and then go to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. A few days later (see “Kommersant” dated May 20) information from the Ministry of Culture presented these plans in an adjusted form: the icon should stay in the Moscow church for those same two weeks, then it will go for restoration, which will take at least a year, and then, without losing the status of a state-protected museum object, it will move to laurel.

As early as May 15, museum specialists announced, following the results of a comprehensive examination of the Trinity, that any transportation of the icon is categorically contraindicated – after last year’s trip to the Lavra, its condition began to worsen menacingly.

Archpriest Leonid Kalinin, former chairman of the Patriarchal Expert Council on Church Art, Architecture and Restoration, was stripped of all posts on May 26 and banned from serving “in connection with the obstruction of bringing the Holy Trinity icon to the Cathedral Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow” – possibly on the basis of the fact that the archpriest admitted the possibility of exhibiting in the temple not the Rublev original, but a copy of the icon.

Nevertheless, the proposed schedule – two weeks in the temple, a long restoration, moving to the Lavra – at the level of state and church leadership seemed to be perceived as a consensus. As early as June 6, Vladimir Tolstoy, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation for Culture, noting that “our main shrines, our cultural values, sacred values ​​must be preserved for future generations,” stated that the icon would return to the Tretyakov Gallery in accordance with the contract.

Since then, the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova has repeatedly stated (the last time on June 16) about the need for the restoration of the Trinity and that only the restorers themselves can determine its timing. True, she clarified that the icon would be restored at the Center. Grabar – but this does not change the essence of the matter.

The fact is that now the Trinity is outside the museum on the basis of a bilateral agreement between the Tretyakov Gallery and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior – approximately the same documents with strictly fixed responsibility of the parties draw up, for example, the issuance of exhibits for an exhibition from one museum to another. After the return of the icon to the Tretyakov Gallery, it can be issued from the museum for restoration, and there will be separate documents for that. But first you need to either fulfill the contract and complete the “exhibition” of the icon in the temple in due time – and this is just not happening anymore – or legally re-register it with new terms (or finally recognize it as invalid for some good reason) – but neither the Ministry of Culture nor the Tretyakov Gallery give any official comments on this topic.

It can be assumed that the two-week movement of the “Trinity” from the museum, despite the desperate risks and despite the emergency state of the precious monument, at least from a formal legal point of view, is legitimate. But the unilateral rejection of the terms of the contract – if we are dealing with it – not only puts the Ministry of Culture in a rather strange position, not to mention the Tretyakov Gallery. The Rublyovskaya icon, which remains (which the Minister of Culture also reminded more than once) state property and part of the state museum fund, in this case simply ends up in the temple on illegitimate grounds.