The icon “Trinity” by Andrey Rublev was moved to the Grabar Center

On the evening of July 19, the icon “Trinity” by Andrey Rublev, which had been kept until this summer in the Tretyakov Gallery, left the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. She was transferred to the All-Russian Artistic Research and Restoration Center named after Academician I. E. Grabar, where, according to preliminary estimates, she will be under the care of specialists for a year. After that, the icon should go to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra – this implies an agreement signed on July 12 by the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova and Patriarch Kirill.

Icon “Trinity” was brought from the State Tretyakov Gallery to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on June 3. Over the past 47 days, she has been worshiped in the temple (according to official estimates given by Interfax) “more than 200 thousand people” (that is, about 4.2 thousand people a day). For comparison: the belt of the Mother of God, which was brought from Athos to Russia in the fall of 2011, attracted a number of pilgrims to the same temple, two orders of magnitude more – according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, about 1 million people for the period from October 19 to October 28, which gives daily attendance at the level of 100 thousand people.

One of the main reasons for the transfer of the “Trinity” to the temporary use of the church, the Moscow Patriarchate called “numerous appeals of Orthodox believers” (although these appeals were never shown to the public). Those who disagree with the transfer of the icon from the Tretyakov Gallery rightfully point out that it has not been hidden from the faithful all this time. Moreover, even in a godless time, a very obvious demonstration of private piety in the corresponding hall of the Tretyakov Gallery was looked at least through the fingers – most recently this was once again confirmed, in particular, in an interview with Kommersant the most famous specialist in ancient Russian painting, Lev Lifshits (“Since the beginning of the 60s, when I myself was still working in the Tretyakov Gallery, I could daily observe what was happening in those halls where both the Trinity and the Vladimir Mother of God were located: believers came , were baptized, knelt down, none of the caretakers, custodians ever pulled them up, did not interfere”). In post-Soviet times, the Tretyakov Gallery was no longer a hotbed of militant atheism, and the Trinity was exhibited on a regular basis, including during divine services in the museum church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi, included in the Tretyakov Gallery complex in Lavrushinsky Lane.

In addition, the prayer audience of the icon during the current emergency exhibition in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is unlikely to exceed the regular attendance of the Tretyakov Gallery. In 2022, according to the official data of the museum, it amounted to 1.9 million people (and this, we note, is the last year, when it is known that foreign tourist flows have already happened) – that is, an average of 5.2 thousand people a day and about 244 thousand people in terms of the same 47 days.

A source in the Tretyakov Gallery told Kommersant that during the stay of the Trinity in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the restorers were not able to open the window and quickly assess the condition of the monument.

These attempts were not made out of idle curiosity. Even before the transfer of the icon to the temple, authoritative representatives of the scientific and restoration community recognized the safety of the icon as emergency (after a trip to the Lavra last summer, the boards that make up the icon began to diverge, the cracks increase, and the author’s paint layer crumbles in places).

The exclusion of restorers from the icon was confirmed (and, admittedly, in blatant terms) by Alexander Shchipkov, First Deputy of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media, by his post in Telegram dated July 12: “It is categorically impossible to give back the main icon of our Church to the fifth column. Because – who keeps the Trinity, he owns the Russian land. A couple of weeks ago, some “restorers” tried to enter the Temple to the icon as its owners. These representatives of the comprador elite were firmly pointed to the door. Didn’t get close. They made a noise and retreated.” A colleague of Alexander Shchipkov, another deputy chairman of the same synodal department, Vakhtang Kipshidze, commenting on the situation at the request of Kommersant, spoke less uncompromisingly: “Believing people treat the issue of preserving this value with no less care than museum workers. I believe that the cooperation of the church and the museum community in this area increases the level of mutual trust, leads to the fact that the conflict finally becomes a thing of the past, which, alas, is associated with the persecution of believers and the illegal seizure of religious shrines.”

In any case, we have to clarify that “the owner of the Russian land” has not changed. “Trinity” as belonged to the state, and will belong. The State Tretyakov Gallery, according to the official agreement, remains the “operational management” of the monument.

Another question is that the agreement can be observed in different ways, as illustrated by at least recent events: the “Trinity” was released from the museum to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior under a temporary exhibition agreement, but then a new agreement appeared on the transfer of the icon to the “free use” of the Trinity-Sergius laurel; moreover, in this series of official papers, an additional agreement arose, according to which the Trinity, already sort of transferred to the Lavra, is sent to the Grabar Center for a year.

Now, be that as it may, the word is up to the restorers – an assessment of the state of Rublev’s painting and a long-term observation of how it will change is necessary. But here, infinitely much depends on the conditions under which the monument will be in a new place. And from the one who exactly will be allowed to him.

Pavel Korobov, Sergey Khodnev