Museums to surrender items to Church?

For almost a year now, committees in the Russian legislature have been drafting a measure to return some of the most revered religious items held in museums  to the Russian Orthodox Church. A few months ago, leading museums raised objections and stirred a debate.

Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill expeditiously put together a reconciliation commission. Its chairman Superior Monk Father Tikhon spoke for our radio Monday after emerging from an enlarged session, attended by the Patriarch and the Russian Culture Minister.

The discussion hammered out an almost unanimous position that aided by the museums, the Church can use the disputed items for prayer without doing damage to them. This means it can indefinitely keep them in places where they truly belong.

Museum heavyweights including the chief Kremlin curator Yelena Gagarina hope for the best, but continue to voice opposition. One particularly vociferous opponent of the proposed transfer is the chief curator of the Andrei Rublev museum of medieval Russian icons Dr. Gennadi Popov. "I do hope the Patriarch’s commission will work in a way that strongly upholds existing laws. Of these, I would like to single out the laws on protecting the national heritage  and on museum collections in Russia," Dr. Popov said.

Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev said that the purpose of the Commission is to build a dialogue that finds common ground between the museums and the Church. The sides are not rivals and are both interested in the best possible conditions for the preservation of cultural and religious treasures.