Giving the Church What Belongs to the People

In January, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed an order to transfer the Novodevichy Convent from the State Historical Museum to the Russian Orthodox Church. This means that thousands of valuable pieces of art that are now displayed in museums will be transferred to dozens — perhaps hundreds — of churches and monasteries?  across Russia. His order will be sent to the State Duma later this year to be codified into law.

Putin’s initiative has created a conflict between the Orthodox Church and the country’s cultural institutions and has raised serious concerns regarding the church’s ability to preserve more than 12,000 valuable pieces of art that will fall under its control. In February, about 150 museum directors and experts appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev in an open letter to not sign the bill if it is passed by the Duma. Unless Medvedev can guarantee that these valuable pieces of art will be protected under the control of the church and that they will be accessible to the public, he should not sign the bill.

Unfortunately, museum officials and art historians have not been consulted or allowed to participate in drafting the legislation that will decide the fate of these rare pieces of art, which are valued at several billion dollars.

Up until now, the artwork has been kept in museums under the control of the state, and the right of the people to enjoy viewing and studying them has been guaranteed. Moreover, Article 14 of the Constitution states that “religious associations shall be separated from the state and shall be equal under the law,” but this article may be violated if the state transfers such large amounts of property to the church — property that belongs to the people, not the church. In addition to complaints from the cultural community over the actions of the authorities, representatives of non-Christian faiths might soon make their own claims to the disputed works of art.

Even though the bill states that “religious organizations may not change the way a religious object is used,” it is unclear how they will carry out the educational role that museums play in society. These objects of invaluable cultural heritage are currently kept in museums that are open to all visitors, who far outnumber those who visit churches or monasteries. In addition, museums often organize traveling exhibitions, making the art available to a wider audience of ordinary viewers and historical and religious scholars. These traveling exhibitions will probably not continue under church ownership.

Any person living in what our Constitution declares to be a secular state, regardless of their religious persuasion, has the right to visit a museum. Non-Christians may feel uncomfortable about entering a church or monastery to view or study artwork that is housed there. Moreover, if the church transfers the art to monasteries that are closed to the public — or in the best case, open to the public for one or two hours — the people will have no or highly restricted access to it. ? 

While housed in state museums, the preservation of the artwork is ensured by a whole range of strict rules and safeguards — from controlled temperatures to guards and alarm systems. Will the church uphold such practices once they have responsibility for these national treasures? The proposed legislation makes no mention of this. Worse, the bill even contains an alarming provision for a “simplified” procedure of handing over the objects. “Simplification” without control could very well result in neglect and damage to the art.

How will the new owners provide the proper conditions for the storage and display of the newly acquired objects? If the now carefully preserved icons are removed from museums, they will be exposed to numerous dangers — from changing climatic conditions and the risk of theft to candle soot that will quickly transform them into pieces of charcoal.

The relaxed approach that many churches have taken toward restoration fall far short of the rigid rules that museums employ. Church personnel have been known to throw away worn-out but important icons that connoisseurs and collectors later discover in monastery wood yards. Churches simply paint over decaying icons and frescos, whereas a professional restorer recreates the original, preserving the authenticity of the cultural heritage it represents without replacing it with an entirely new design. About 80 restorers who follow the necessary standards for preserving monuments are currently at work in the Novodevichy Convent. The new bill does not require the church to employ those professional restorers.

Unfortunately, there have already been cases when the transfer of museum treasures to the Orthodox Church were botched. In Vladimir and in Zvenigorod, frescoes by Andrei Rublev were destroyed by exposure to dampness and smoke. In Sergiyev Posad, about 70 kilometers northeast of Moscow, the iconostasis created by Rublev and his artisans in the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius Monastery is dirty and in urgent need of restoration, and in Kostroma the sections of 13th-century Fyodorov icons extending beyond their mounts were actually sawn off.

The term “restitution” is often used in connection with this bill, but many of the cultural objects in question were acquired by private collectors, not by the church. Museums also purchased a great many objects at auctions or from private collectors and, regardless of their supposed “religious nature,” they belong to the state.

The 500-year-old Novodevichy Convent that Putin has “donated” to Patriarch Kirill is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and contains about 20,000 works of art and assorted cultural objects, a third of which were obtained through private purchases. It is unclear why ownership of all this should be transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. In fact, part of the collection belongs to the Old Believers Church. But the bill makes no mention of that church, and refers only to giving objects to the “appropriate denominations.”

The only way to defuse the tension is to start a dialogue with the country’s leading art and museum experts. If the authorities and the church are motivated by a desire to maintain the international artistic heritage that these objects represent, then the first condition is that strict standards must be observed for their storage and security. These standards should be no less stringent than the ones instituted at museums. In addition, an independent council of experts must be created to monitor the condition of these works of art after they are transferred into the care of religious organizations. The law should also preserve the right of the people to have access to them after they are handed over to the church.

If these measures are not taken, there is a high chance that a huge part of Russia’s cultural heritage will be lost forever.