On March 19, in the first week of Lent, the pilgrims of the Znamensky Church went on a tour of the Orthodox museums in Moscow. One day our parishioners were to pray at the liturgy in the church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi, visit the museum of Russian icons and the Athos courtyard. The rich program did not frighten our travelers, and many took their children with them on the pilgrimage.
The first place visited was the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi. This is a unique temple-museum located in Zamoskvorechye. Today it has the status of a home church at the Tretyakov Gallery. All the necessary conditions have been created here for the storage of unique shrines, which are the spiritual and cultural heritage of our people. Once a year, on the feast of the Holy Trinity, the icon "Trinity", painted by Andrei Rublev, is brought to the church from the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery. The interior of the temple features over 150 items from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery. So, for example, in the temple-museum in a specially equipped icon case, the greatest shrine and world-famous work of art is kept - the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. Her stay in the temple at the Tretyakov Gallery underlines the religious and artistic value of the shrine. There are also especially revered icons of the Mother of God "Iverskaya" and "Satisfy my sorrows", the Dmitrov cross and a reliquary. Before the liturgy, the pilgrims venerated the icons of the Mother of God "Vladimirskaya" and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the relics of the saints of God. Many have succeeded in taking part in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
This is not the first time that the Museum of Russian Icon has met our pilgrims. The fascinating and informative excursion took place in a friendly atmosphere. Both adults and children listened attentively to the guide's story, vying with each other to ask him the most unexpected questions.
Our journey ended at the Athos courtyard in Moscow. In Greece, on the sacred Mount Athos, there is the St. Panteleimon Monastery (Rossikon, New Russik). In Moscow, in the Taganka area, his representative office, the Athos courtyard, is equipped. The main monastery church - the holy Great Martyr Nikita on Shvivaya Gorka - was erected in the 16th century. Particles of the holy relics of the healer Panteleimon and the Monk Silouan, transferred to the monastery from Athos, are kept at the Moscow courtyard.
On the way back, the pilgrims watched films dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Znamensky Church in the village of Staraya Kashira and the history of the pilgrimage. The trip gave everyone a lot of new knowledge and impressions, the main of which is that the time of Great Lent can be spent interestingly, with benefits for the mind and soul.
Say "temple of art", and everyone will understand that we are talking about a museum. Despite the fact that there is a serious war going on between temples and art now. It includes a dispute over cultural property that was once confiscated from the Church and transferred to museums, and the Church's wary attitude towards art actions that offend the religious feelings of believers. Suddenly, one of the most famous museum workers in the country, the director of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky and the governor of the famous Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Bishop Nazariy of Vyborg (Lavrinenko) decided to enter into a real dialogue. The "RG" correspondent witnessed it.
Time to find solutions
What do you aim at your dialogue?
Bishop Nazarius: In the beginning, Mikhail Borisovich and I did not succeed in dialogue. Each held his own position. But in recent years it has become obvious that it is necessary to start a constructive conversation. Otherwise, we will bring the state of affairs to an impasse. His Holiness the Patriarch advises us in all resonant events to be sure to talk with people of a different position. And so we met with Mikhail Borisovich. After the meeting, I didn’t say “we don’t need anything from the museums,” and he didn’t say “take everything you want”, but after talking, we saw where and what compromises are possible.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: I do not like neglect of conversations: "Well, they say, this is all a talking shop." The talking shop is a very important part of our life. Firstly, we communicate with each other in a human way, and secondly, we develop common recipes. Moreover, the found recipe for a solution does not oblige us to abandon our principled positions. Although the most important thing for us is the understanding that culture and the Church are engaged in one thing: they make a person better. But in different ways.
Bishop Nazarius: We have a wonderful example of interaction - the Hermitage has returned to us the central chandelier of the Trinity Cathedral. Of course, not without a struggle. But nonetheless...
Mikhail Piotrovsky: This chandelier ended up in the Hermitage after the plundering of the Trinity Cathedral. And when, during the war, a silver chandelier broke in a terrible way, without the possibility of restoration, in the Petrovsky Hall, the chandelier "saved" us, illuminating the Small Throne Hall. But we understood that there was sense in his return to the Trinity Cathedral. Therefore, having discussed a lot, at the meeting of the Academic Council, we decided: it served us, but its cultural role has been played, and we can return it with gratitude. True, we had nothing for a long time in the Petrovsky Hall, but now they have already found it.
What positions do you adhere to regarding the return of museum valuables to the Church?
Bishop Nazarius: As a person of the Church, I stand on the position: what was taken from the Church must return. But just like "take and take", as well as "take and leave", is impossible. Mikhail Borisovich does not keep what he has taken from his dacha, and I don’t want to take it to the dacha either. The Hermitage is a state institution, the Church is a huge public organization, all the subtleties must be taken into account: the policy of the state, and the law on museum values, and the opinion of many people, both church and secular. I believe that the time for compromises has not yet come. We need to clarify the position to the end, take into account everything that happened before us, forgive the sins of others. But we already understand that it is possible and necessary to seek compromises. To begin with, it seems to me that we should have found and accepted the "zero option". For me, it looks like this: from all that is church, which is in museums, first of all, it is necessary to return the Miraculous icons and relics. They have a sacred meaning and are objects of worship. Moreover, museums often keep Miraculous icons, which, in terms of their artistic value, are not so important to them. And the relics lie somewhere in the cabinets.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: As for the relics, I absolutely agree. We have prepared a list - about 50 particles of relics are kept in the Hermitage - for their possible transfer to the Church. Everything had already been agreed upon, but during the transfer of the relics in the Kremlin, it became clear that along with the particles of the relics, the repositories, which are of artistic value, should be transferred, and everything in Moscow stalled. And we stopped behind them. But everything is prepared to do this. By the way, we handed over the relics of the saints to the Armenian Church.
Bishop Nazarius: I would also raise the question of the return of the Eucharistic vessels to the Church, because the Sacrament of the Eucharist took place in them. There are also questions about the proper storage of shrines. I personally saw when the Museum of the History of Religion was moving from the Kazan Cathedral that the liturgical vessels are in the same boxes in which they were once taken from the Church, without numbers, without taking into account.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Each such case, I think, needs to be discussed. It is possible that the boxes were reused for the move. In fact, the records were kept very carefully, since everything that was taken from the churches was intended to be melted down. And what remained in the museums was what they managed to save.
A thing in a different context
The church wants to get back what was once taken from her, and museums are resisting this. What is the basis for this resistance?
Mikhail Piotrovsky: The historical role of museums has always been to preserve the cultural heritage, of which the ecclesiastical heritage is a part, and to transmit it further in a slightly different context. Let's say Christianity destroyed antique sculptures ...
Bishop Nazarius: I hope you know better than me that the name of the previous pharaoh was also cut off from the pyramids ...
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Yes, but at the same time - under the auspices of Christianity - museums arose, where antique sculptures were transferred as museum items. Indeed, during the revolutions, the cultural values of opponents were trampled underfoot, but one of the functions of museums is to take things out of the previous context, call them art and, independently, preserve them. And they, by the way, acquire new facets in museums. Religious items confiscated from the Church and kept in museums during the Soviet era educated the public in a certain way. Including religiously. Children were always brought to Raphael's paintings to tell them about the Bible. And who the Apostle Paul was in Soviet times, they learned from the painting of the great Veronese "The Conversion of Saul".
Bishop Nazarius: Exhibited in the museum as a painting, the icon does not lose its sacred content, this is true, but it does not depend on the museum.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: However, people come to museums who will not come to church. Therefore, it is very important that they meet with church art.
Bishop Nazarius: Anyone can come both to the museum and to the temple. We do not ask on the threshold of the church: are you a believer or not? A man comes, that's all. But I want to note that museum specialists know church art well only from the point of view of art. And from the point of view of the inner spiritual content, which permeates every detail, alas, even the greatest art critics do not know it. Therefore, one should not delude ourselves that people who go to museums and do not go to church will understand the essence of faith that way.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: But they learn more about a lot in a museum than in a temple. Museums are educational institutions. Although, perhaps, some things can be learned only in the temple. In the church and the museum there are different contexts of perception. And, given the new museum function that has arisen in relation to a thing that has already been removed from the church context, it is necessary to discuss and decide in each case separately: here taking out of context is normal, but here, by and large, it does not correspond to the meaning of the thing, as is the case with the relics in the museum. ...
The cancer controversy
Mikhail Piotrovsky: And here for us the story is very indicative, which is now on everyone's lips: with the tombstone of Alexander Nevsky. This is not an icon, not an object of worship.
Bishop Nazarius: However, cancer is not free from the sacred origin. Those who come into contact with the holy relics for the believer also become a shrine. And the icon will be sanctified if the relics are placed in it.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: But for us it is just a thing taken out of context and given a new context in the museum. Its new function has been actively integrated into the life of the Hermitage. Yes, it was taken away from the Church, but let's look back at history: once Peter took the relics of Alexander Nevsky from Vladimir and transferred it to St. Petersburg, is it not possible to return them now to Vladimir?
Bishop Nazarius: The relics were not alienated from the Church, they remained in it, although, probably, the people of Vladimir themselves did not rejoice over the emperor's decree.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: But now, not relics, but a tombstone stands in the Winter Palace, the entire internal program of which is built as a symbol of the military triumph of Russia: the field marshal's hall, the military gallery, Alexander I at all corners. And Alexander Nevsky with his victories over the Germans on the Neva is depicted on our bas-reliefs. And therefore, his tombstone perfectly fit into the overall historical and symbolic "scheme" of the Winter Palace. Our Palace Museum doesn't accept something, it doesn't accept it. And he "accepted" this thing. Millions of people come to the Hermitage to look at it. I believe that nothing bad will happen if the tombstone remains in the museum, and a copy is made and consecrated to store the relics of the saint. Moreover, being consecrated and in contact with the relics, this copy will acquire a sacred meaning.
Bishop Nazarius: But if we have cancer, then more people will go to church. But the main thing is that it will stand in its place! If something was done specifically for the storage of the shrine in the temple, you must agree that there is a triumph of justice in that it corresponds to its purpose. And from its museum function in this place will not diminish. But in the Hermitage, I'm sorry, she is in the Ballroom.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: No, it is called Concert, although there are never concerts in it. This is just the name of one of the ceremonial rooms of the Winter Palace. Do not rename it?
Bishop Nazarius: But we must try to explain all this. Because one of the main arguments of the supporters of the withdrawal of crayfish: it is not there. We respect museums and the qualified specialists working in them, who have devoted so much effort to preserving church values. The same cancer of St. Alexander Nevsky was saved more than once by them from being melted down! These efforts should be appreciated and appreciated. But regarding the fate of cancer, the Council for Culture under the Patriarch, His Holiness the Patriarch himself will work out a position. And I, even if I have a slightly different view, will obey the conciliar reason, as is customary in our country. However, most importantly, we already understand that we will "settle" the situation. This is not a joke, a resonant case, and we must look for the most acceptable ways to solve it.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: First you need to make a copy. In addition to "zero decisions", there are so-called deferred solutions. The question of the tombstone of Alexander Nevsky can still be attributed to such. I specifically say "tombstone", "sarcophagus", not cancer, because cancer is still a wooden coffin ...
Bishop Nazarius :... which is also in the Hermitage.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Yes, we also have it - this is an ancient, painted cancer ...
Does this story require a precedent decision?
Mikhail Piotrovsky: For a long time - Vladyka knows - I have been in correspondence about the tombstone. And my position is this: since the state that emerged after the revolution robbed both the Church and museums, and its ideology was often primitively simple: to take, sell, melt, now it is the moral duty of the state to compensate for what was taken from the Church. And the debt of the state should not be reduced to easy forms of transferring back and forth. A solution is needed that will both repay the debt of the Church and will not harm Russian culture.
This is not a chase for a ton and a half of silver
Do you already have examples of solutions that would suit both parties?
Mikhail Piotrovsky: The Lavra had a famous incident with the Russian Museum ...
Bishop Nazarius: For six or seven years I fought not to transfer back to the museum the painting by Grigory Ugryumov "The ceremonial entry of Alexander Nevsky into the city of Pskov ..." Catherine II. I didn’t give it away because I heard: "You pay, we will make a copy, and we will take the original." In the end, the Russian Museum agreed to make a copy at its own expense. We brought her, and she stood with us as in her place. And we handed over the original to the museum a year earlier. I later said to Vladimir Gusev: "When we handed you the original, there was no press, but what kind of press ball did you throw in the Marble Palace on the theme:" The Russian Museum wrote a copy to the Lavra! "
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Situations when the Church and museums meet each other halfway should not be hushed up.
Lord Nazarius: U we have precedents of mutual cooperation. For the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, museums donated 15 items to the Lavra for temporary placement. We annually submit information about them, confirm our responsibility for them. Museum control continues over what was handed over to us.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: This story with the transfer of a painting to a museum is a very good example. And we really appreciate what the Church is doing.
Bishop Nazarius: In our life, the public usually looks for only examples of stubbornness. No, if there is a reason and serious arguments, the Church can make compromises. And not just "grab", as angry bloggers write: "The Church wanted one and a half tons of silver." But silver is important only because such a great saint should not be in plastic. We do not need the state to bring one and a half tons of silver ingots. We process so much silver in a short time in our official jewelry workshop, where it turns into crosses, vestments for icons. So one and a half tons of silver, if someone really needs them for a good cause, we could donate ourselves.
50 particles of relics are kept in the Hermitage. The Museum has prepared a list of them for the transfer of the Church.
Museum in the church
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Still, it is not for nothing that one of the important topics of our department at the Faculty of Philosophy "Museums and Churches". I think that church museums will soon become relevant, they need to be developed.
Bishop Nazarius: Before the revolution, they were commonplace. We had a famous Ancient Storage in our Lavra. And now there are items worthy of museumification, and we are completing the renovation of the premises for the museum.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: This is a special type of museum. Our department is already teaching people who will work in church museums.
Bishop Nazarius: Much is organized differently in secular museums and in the Church. Scientific restoration, for example, has the goal of clearing and fixing the preserved image as much as possible, and the church restores it, but so that at any moment everything could be returned to its original state.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Indeed, according to the Venetian charter, museum workers cannot add anything to the restoration of paintings. Although the Hermitage restorers tint the image so that a person can see the whole. And in the church, I believe, the reversible restoration that Vladyka spoke about is permissible. And it is very important to revive and preserve these features of church restoration. And "church archeology" is a separate archeology, it has its own aesthetic principles and a slightly different attitude.
Will the main cadres - experts, specialists - for church museums be invited from the museum world or will they grow up within the Church?
Bishop Nazarius: Icon-painting departments have appeared in our educational institutions, and courses in "church archeology" are taught. But, of course, the very museum business, art history, we will need to learn from museums. And I think that they will not refuse to help us, despite the differences. Mikhail Borisovich and I cannot afford to quarrel like Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich.
Church in the museum
How was the issue of the palace church in the Hermitage resolved? Will services be held there?
Mikhail Piotrovsky: The Winter Palace Church is now being restored; a competition for the restoration of the iconostasis has just been held. By the way, there are parts in it, I showed Vladyka, which, in principle, can be restored. We have already discussed with him that, having restored the iconostasis, we will place in the icon cases some of the best Byzantine icons that we have, so that they have a double function - museum and church. And on December 25, the day of the expulsion of the enemies from the borders of the Fatherland, we will definitely hold a church service in the church. This holiday was once a state holiday, but then dropped out of the secular calendar and remained only a church one. And we would like to revive it in a secular version: in the church - a prayer service, in the Winter Palace - a small parade.
Bishop Nazarius: Well, the feast day is a must ...
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Yes, but we need to find a solution that is acceptable to both parties. Services with us cannot be frequent, in the museum mode you cannot burn candles, service the dead and arrange weddings.
Warranties and technologies
Can the church calmly accept the values returned to it by museums and guarantee their safety?
Bishop Nazarius: We often hear the accusation: the Church will not be able to preserve museum values. There is some truth in this. Not every temple or monastery can professionally preserve a cultural masterpiece. But I say with full responsibility: Lavra can. We have a restoration workshop, experienced specialists, and the opportunity to show objects of great cultural value in the exposition of our museum. Taking this or that rarity to ourselves, we certainly do not limit its museum life. Having found 30 tombstones in the Fyodorovskaya church over the burials of the Georgian kings who ended up in the Russian capital after the Pact of St. George, we spent so much money to museumize them - to recreate them, to cover them with special glasses! But I do not deny that there are temples where a cultural masterpiece can be lost. When I sometimes visit the ancient temples of the Yaroslavl Region and see how the beautiful icons with a raised layer of paint are carefully rubbed, this brings me into a pre-infarction state. And besides, the temple is not heated, and they have not heard of ventilation ... I just want to take a team of restorers and come to the conservation work. It seems to me that academic courses are needed at the Theological Academies for those who want to devote themselves to church art. And we must rely on the experience of museums.
Does the church need modern museum technology?
Bishop Nazarius: Of course! We are not in an amateurish mood, we involve only licensed specialists in the restoration work, although they are much more expensive. Mikhail Borisovich, you will not be surprised if I say that some of the Hermitage workers work with us ...
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Well, why not, if after the main working day.
Bishop Nazarius: Monasteries and temples, in addition to expositions, also need special storage places, arranged according to all the rules, with a specified temperature, etc. In this regard, I was visited by the following "seditious", but important idea. If there was a real understanding between the Church and museums, our icons - cultural masterpieces - we could, if necessary, be kept in museum depositories. On the condition that they remain ours, and, when necessary, we take them for service or for display in a church museum. We would draw up an agreement on the transfer of them for storage, and as a payment we could give the museum the opportunity to exhibit them.
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Right. It is these dynamic schemes that must work in the 21st century. At the same time, a system of guarantees, electronic tracking, etc. is needed. I believe that museum things can temporarily be in the Church, and church things temporarily in a museum and become an object of scientific research there. We have experience, and this experience is more important than an argument.
Direct speech
Mikhail Piotrovsky. Photo: Alexey Danichev / RIA Novosti www.ria.ru
Bishop Nazarius. Photo: Stanislav Marchenko
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Religious items confiscated from the Church and kept in museums during the Soviet era educated the public in a certain way. Including religiously. Children were always brought to Raphael's paintings to tell them about the Bible. And who the Apostle Paul was in Soviet times was recognized from the painting of the great Veronese "The Conversion of Saul".
And in the museum they learn about a lot more than in the temple, since museums are educational institutions. There are different contexts of perception in the Church and the museum. And it is necessary to separately discuss and decide in each case: here taking out of context is normal, but here it does not, by and large, correspond to the meaning of the thing, as is the case with the relics in the museum.
Bishop Nazarius: And so we met with Mikhail Borisovich. After the meeting, I didn’t say “we don’t need anything from the museums”, and he didn’t say “take everything you want”, but after talking, we saw where, how and what compromises are possible. And we already have a wonderful example of interaction - the Hermitage has returned to us the central chandelier of the Trinity Cathedral.
We respect museums and the qualified specialists working in them, who have devoted so much effort to preserving church values. The same cancer of St. Alexander Nevsky was not once saved by them from being melted down! These efforts should be appreciated and appreciated.
by the way
The reliquary with the relics of more than 30 saints was transferred from the storerooms of the Tretyakov Gallery to the Church-Museum of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi. The relics of such saints as the Apostles Peter and Paul, St. John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Nicholas the Wonderworker are kept in the ark.
“Today the whole Church rejoices because the saints have found their home,” said the rector of the church, Archpriest Nikolai Sokolov.
In the Church-Museum of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi, which is a department of the Tretyakov Gallery, services have been resumed for 20 years. Earlier, great Christian relics were transferred to this temple for safekeeping: the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, the miraculous Dmitrov cross.
Sergey Chapnin
The transfer of the Toropetsky icon from the Russian Museum to an Orthodox church caused heated public discussions. Against the usual discussion, it turned out to be constructive and became the basis for the creation of two bills, one of them regulates the transfer of state and municipal property to religious organizations for religious purposes, and the second - the restoration of those religious objects that have historical and artistic significance and are already in owned by religious organizations. The statement by the Minister of Culture that the draft laws are already ready triggered a new wave of discussions.
Caring for the objects of church art is a common business of museums, the state and the Church. However, the situation cannot be called favorable. What to do?
The basic principles of attitude to cultural heritage are very simple. First, safety. Secondly, availability. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that contemporary museums in Russia are performing these tasks successfully. Yes, there are wonderful museum curators, there are museums that can pay for the best restorers, but there are not many such museums. There are big problems with the safety of the museum fund today. There are no fewer problems with accessibility. The exposition contains from 3 to 5 percent of the museum collections. Everything else lies in storerooms, access to which is very difficult. Thus, today the availability of museum collections is a myth. According to the most conservative estimates, there are more than 200,000 icons in the storerooms of Russian museums, which can only be seen by specialists.
Museums are interested in keeping information about the state of museum funds a secret with seven seals. How acute the problem is, is evidenced by the conflict between the leadership of the Hermitage and the auditors of the Accounts Chamber, which was covered in great detail in the media in 2000. The reason for the conflict was the conclusions of the auditor of the Accounts Chamber, Pyotr Chernomord, made based on the results of the audit of the Hermitage and approved by the Resolution of the Collegium of the Accounts Chamber No. 5 (197) of 18 February 2000.
Pyotr Chernomord formulates the problems harshly and unambiguously: “The State Hermitage management unlawfully entrusted the performance of restoration and other work to commercial organizations that did not have a license for the relevant activities. to carry out work on the repair and restoration of especially valuable objects of the cultural heritage of the peoples of Russia. In 1998-1999, the workshops illegally performed restoration work in the amount of 17.8 million rubles. ”
In 2006, a new shock. Thefts from the Hermitage with the theatrical return of one of the items through the trash can. Then, during an intra-museum check in the Russian department of the Hermitage, the loss of the 221st exhibit was revealed. Under suspicion, one of the Hermitage guardians, Larisa Zavadskaya, died right during the check. Later, her husband, Nikolai Zavadsky, was brought to trial on charges of stealing more than 70 of the missing exhibits. The court sentenced Zavadsky to five years in prison, and also satisfied a civil claim in favor of the Hermitage in the amount of over 7.3 million rubles.
Commenting on the loss, TV presenter and writer Alexander Arkhangelsky noted: “The fact that 221 storage units are missing is terrible. But why did everyone know that they were missing? Because the curators and the management of the Hermitage voluntarily entered into the general inventory kept in the museum, an inventory of those valuables that were in this department. And what are these values? Basically, what the Soviet state stole from the Church, and hid, and forced museum workers to cover up their actions. The museum worker is obliged to preserve. This is his function, he himself is not always interested in who, from where and for what reasons transferred the items to the museum. Some items were officially handed over to him, and he, fulfilling the state order, keeps everything. At the same time, such a strange situation persists: there is a box in the storage, in it there are six thousand items. And there is a little notebook containing an inventory of these six thousand items. "
The case of embezzlement from the Hermitage caused a great public outcry - as a result, a government commission was created to check all museum funds in Russia. At the end of October 2008, out of 83 million items checked by the commission, museums did not present a significant part - about 86 thousand.
Describing the situation in museums, I am far from thinking that the preservation of cultural values in the Church is better established. And here there are problems: the theft of icons from churches has ceased to be something exceptional, restoration is carried out with serious errors and costs, in many dioceses there are no bodies that control restoration activities.
The concern for the preservation of cultural heritage has not yet been recognized as the task of the entire Church.
Of course, there are positive examples of the organization of protection, restoration and exhibiting, but there are very few especially church ones among them.
These are mainly examples of successful cooperation between specific churches and specific museums: the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi (now it is customary to add “at the Tretyakov Gallery” to the historical name), the Moscow Novodevichy Convent (in the near future we will witness the transfer of the monastery complex from jointly with the museum exclusively under the authority of the church), the situation in Solovki looks very promising after in 2009 the governor of the Solovetsky monastery was appointed director of the state museum.
Of course, the state cannot be excluded from this scheme. A unique, unprecedented situation arises - state movable property, which has a special protection status, is donated to the Church. A separate law is good and correct, but this is not enough. A more ambitious document is needed - the concordat, otherwise there are too many obstacles not only for the development of full-fledged cooperation in the preservation of cultural values, but also in other areas.
If we talk about property, then the attitude towards it should be differentiated. For example, there are three categories of church property in museums:
The first is the actual museum collections, which were formed both before the October coup (for example, part of the collection of the Russian Museum) and donated to museums by modern collectors (I believe that the Church will not demand the return of items from the collection of Gleb Pokrovsky, donated in 2009 to the Central Museum of Old Russian culture and art named after Andrei Rublev).
The second is icons and church utensils saved from destruction, i.e. brought from expeditions, etc.
The third is church property confiscated (plundered) by the Bolsheviks.
The status of items in each category should be as clearly defined as possible. It may be necessary to develop a general scale of the degree of preservation. Perhaps one should have different attitudes to sewing, to an icon, to utensils made of metal and stone.
Speaking about the fact that museum workers and restorers have preserved many objects of church art, one should not forget that icons were not painted for museums, church vestments and shrouds of saints were not sewn for museums. This is an expression of faith, material evidence of heartfelt prayer and personal experience of communion with God. It is far from always justified to alienate these objects from the church, to take them out of the liturgical context.
All the more dangerous is the rhetoric of the aforementioned Piotrovsky, who claims that “a museum is as much a shrine as a temple”. In other words, the museum and the temple are equal not only in relation to the cultural heritage, but also in the absolute, “sacred” sense. Perhaps an attempt to give a sacred status to a museum will seem naive to someone, but only at first glance. Behind these words is another attempt to tear culture away from cult, to give culture complete independence, sacred status, to “equalize in rights” with religion.
Curiously, this is only an intermediate goal.
In the same paragraph, Piotrovsky blurts out: “In the church, the availability of things is limited. In the museum space, the icon does not lose the opportunity to communicate with a person, a believer or not. She does not communicate with a secular person in church. ” In other words, the ultimate goal of Piotrovsky is to prove that a museum is better than a temple. The museum is "more sacred" than the temple. But it is impossible to prove this thesis without rigging the facts.
Above, I have already said that the availability of cultural values in museums is a myth. Apparently, Piotrovsky understands this very well and is trying to overlap one myth with another - about the alleged inaccessibility of an icon in a church for a secular person. A strange, unfounded statement.
The state and the museum community today cannot cope with the task of preserving cultural values. Of course, it is difficult to admit this, but it is nevertheless necessary. If you muster up the courage and take the first step, then the second becomes quite understandable - the search for reliable partners to solve the problem. The Russian Orthodox Church is undoubtedly a reliable and committed partner.
However, each of the parties should study and assess the risks that arise from such cooperation. It is clear that the transfer of values will not be instantaneous.
But to what extent will it happen? Who will do this? Where and what kind of premises will be needed for exhibitions and storage? What security regime is required? What is making capsules for storing individual shrines? How to organize monitoring of the status of icons? Who, how and where will carry out the restoration work of such a significant volume? I am afraid that today not only is there no answer to these questions, but the questions themselves have not yet been posed.
The church needs not separate specialists and not separate premises, but a whole system that has to be created practically from scratch. The paradox is that today the Church does not even have a corresponding administrative institution. Everyone and no one is responsible for the cultural heritage in the Church today.
Meanwhile, back in 2006, in the course of consultations between the Administrative Department of the Moscow Patriarchate and Rosokhrankultura, proposals were made to create a Synodal Department for Culture, in which two main departments would deal with movable and immovable property, respectively. It was assumed that such a synodal department could work in close cooperation with Rosokhrankultura and its territorial departments.
In the meantime, emotional discussions continue ... And on the outburst of emotions a false dilemma arises: either-or. Or a museum or a temple. In the heat of disputes, joint projects are excluded - church museums, temples with museum expositions. And yet I cannot imagine that museums and the Church will quarrel, go to different corners.
In 2007, Boris Boyarskov, then the head of Rosokhrankultura, argued that the Russian Orthodox Church was the country's largest user and owner of cultural heritage sites. About 95% of all religious monuments are in use or in the ownership of parishes and monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The church and museums are doomed to cooperate. Yes, there will be conflicts from time to time. But the only reasonable way is to develop interaction by all available means. For this:
- the state must create the necessary legal framework and provide financial support;
- museum workers should abandon useless attempts to sacralize their activities and soberly assess the possibilities for preserving funds;
- The Church is called to realize its responsibility for the cultural heritage and actively participate in its preservation.
We all desperately need a new concept of museum work, the organization of the exposition, but this is a topic for another conversation.
A single monument of cult (mainly Orthodox) architecture with the aim of preserving and revealing its cultural and historical value, which is what the exposition interpretation is aimed at.
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg
It is customary to consider a museum-temple only a monument that is museumified as a museum, when the means of museum interpretation are aimed at revealing the meaning of the monument itself. Churches adapted for extraneous expositions not related to the monument itself do not belong to temple museums. The nature of the exposition in the museum-temple is dictated primarily by the preservation of the monument. In buildings of a high degree of preservation, the original interior is preserved as much as possible, supplemented by information on the history of the temple, its artistic features, restoration, etc. With a low degree of preservation in the interior, a typological exposition of the temple interior is created for a specific date, or an exposition is created in an empty interior that reveals the historical and artistic significance of the monument.
Petersburg. Saint Isaac's Cathedral
The network of museums-temples has been developing in Russia in the first post-October decade. After 1927, the overwhelming majority of temple museums were closed as ideologically harmful. This type of museums is being revived anew after the Great Patriotic War, in the 1970s and 1980s. Acquires wide distribution and variety of forms. Since the early 1990s. A significant number of monuments of cult architecture that have been museumified have been returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, the surviving museum-temples, as a rule, combine the functions of a museum and a cult building.
The most famous temple museums:
Moscow:
The Moscow Kremlin Museum-Reserve includes:
- Assumption Cathedral
- Cathedral of the Archangel
- Blagoveshchensky cathedral
- Church of the Robe
Church of the Intercession of the Virgin in Fili
Church of the Georgian Mother of God
Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi (part of the State Tretyakov Gallery)
St. Petersburg:
Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
Peter and Paul Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress (part of the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg)
Vladimir:
Assumption Cathedral (shared by the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve and the Vladimir diocese)
Dmitrovsky Cathedral
Suzdal:
Cathedral of the Nativity
Vologda:
Sophia Cathedral
"Kizhi" Museum-Reserve:
Transfiguration Church
Church of the Intercession
Kargopol:
Nativity of Christ Cathedral
Kulikovo field:
Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh
Novgorod:
Sophia Cathedral
Church of the Savior on Ilyin Street
Church of Theodore Stratilates
Church of the Savior on Nereditsa
Pereslavl-Zalessky
Transfiguration Cathedral
Pskov
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral of the Mirozhsky Monastery
Church of St. Nicholas from Usohi
Ryazan
Assumption Cathedral
Uglich
Church of Dmitry on the Blood
Yuriev Polsky
St. George Cathedral
Yaroslavl
Transfiguration Cathedral
Church of Elijah the Prophet
Christmas church
History
Since the Middle Ages, churches in Russia have performed additional functions of concentrating relics and memorial objects, works of art, as well as monuments in honor of significant events, which makes them related to proto-museums. The first attempts to use the premises of churches as museums in Russia date back to the end of the 19th century.
Trinity Church in Nikitniki. Moscow
The process of the massive transformation of churches into museums began in Russia after the October Revolution in the context of anti-religious propaganda and the nationalization of church property. Giving the status of museums to monuments of cult architecture was the best, and often the only way to preserve the most valuable of them. K ser. 1920s dozens of churches of Moscow, Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Ryazan and other provinces were turned into museums. The activities of these museums were controlled by the Office of Manor-Museums, Museum-Churches and Museum-Monasteries, created within the framework of the People's Commissariat for Education. Initially, museification was carried out by simply fixing the monument with all the items of its interior, however, the transformation of the most significant churches (the cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin, the Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye, the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Petrograd) into museums included scientific research, restoration and, in some cases, the reconstruction of the interior at the optimal date. ... There are many examples of constructive interaction between museums and churches in order to preserve cultural heritage; the joint use of religious buildings by the museum and the community was often initiated by the clergy themselves.
After 1927, most of the temple museums were closed; many religious buildings were demolished or adapted for local history and other expositions not related to the monument, thus, temple museums as a special type of museums almost ceased to exist. Only a few churches, usually with highly artistic murals and iconostases, survived in the 1930-50s. as independent objects of museum display (Trinity Church in Nikitniki, Moscow; Church of Elijah the Prophet, Yaroslavl); At that time, there were isolated cases of organizing new museum-temples (Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, Suzdal) and joint use of the monument by the museum and the diocese (Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir).
A new stage in the development of museums-temples in the late 1950s. associated with a revision of the attitude towards the ancient Russian heritage and the formation of a network of museum-reserves, many of which included temple buildings. The expositions of the museums-temples of this time were built using a significant number of written and photographic documents, archaeological finds in order to acquaint the visitor with the history of the monument and its restoration (at present, the work of Russian restorers continues to restore the murals of the Novgorod temples of the Savior on Nereditsa, Assumption on Volotovo field destroyed by the Nazis , Spas on Kovalevo, etc.). In the churches built in honor of significant events, they tried to organize an exposition dedicated to this event (in the Cathedral of the Spaso-Borodinsky Monastery - the Battle of Borodino, in the Church of Sergius of Radonezh on Red Hill - the Battle of Kulikovo, in the Archangel Cathedral of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin - Kozma Minin, there was also transferred the ashes of the great Nizhny Novgorod, and the fight against the Polish-Lithuanian intervention). Monuments of religious architecture that do not have a high historical and cultural value could be used for any expositions and exhibitions.
By the 1980s. include attempts to complement the interiors of temple museums with music, play of light, theatrical performance, thereby restoring emotional saturation. Concerts of sacred music and choral singing became popular in M.-kh. (Cathedral of the Smolny Monastery in Leningrad, Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye in Moscow). Attempts were made to recreate the "synthesis of the arts" (which, according to P. Florensky, is a temple act) using technical capabilities: for example, the interior of the Church of the Deposition of the Robe in the Moscow Kremlin was shown using audiovisual means. At the beginning of the 21st century. an attempt was made to "virtual reconstruction" in the real exhibition space of the interior of the Church of the Assumption on Volotovo Pole destroyed during the Great Patriotic War.
Since the early 1990s. a significant number of religious buildings were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, others began to be used jointly by museums and dioceses (the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, the Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye, the Church of the Intercession in Fili (Moscow), Peter and Paul Cathedral (St. Petersburg), St. Sophia Cathedral (Novgorod). museums-temples were greatly reduced, only a few monuments of cult architecture, which underwent restoration in the 1990s, received the status of museums: the Cathedral of the Resurrection (Savior on Spilled Blood) in St. Petersburg, the Church of the Entry into Jerusalem in Totma, Vologda Region. -the temple by the end of the 20th century - a monument with a completely reconstructed interior decoration, in which worship is held on certain Christian holidays.
Literature
Golovkin K.G. Review of legislative and regulatory acts of the Russian Federation on the transfer of real estate of religious significance to confessional associations (1990-2000) // Heritage and Modernity. Information collection. - Issue. No. 9. - M., 2002. - P. 171-195 (Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D.S.Likhachev);
State-church relations in Russia (past experience and current state). - M., 1996;
Davydova A.S. Issues of preservation and use of interiors of ancient Russian architecture monuments for museum purposes // Issues of protection, restoration and promotion of historical and cultural monuments. - M., 1979. - S.31-36. (Collection of scientific works / Research Institute of Culture);
Novodevichy Convent
The Novodevichy Convent ceased to function in 1922, at the same time a museum was organized within its walls. In the early 1930s, the museum became part of the Moscow Historical Museum. The museum collection here was created on the basis of the richest sacristy of the monastery. In addition, the entire architectural ensemble of the monastery, dating back to the construction of the 16-18 centuries, is of interest. Many exhibits of the museum appeared in the Novodevichy Convent from the former closed churches and monasteries of Moscow and the region.
The museum is notable for the fact that its permanent exhibition took shape over many decades. We must pay tribute to the former directors and curators of the museum, who did not allow the removal of a single exhibit from the monastery. Currently, the museum's funds contain over 10,000 items.
Exposition of the Novodevichy Convent Museum
The main exhibits of the museum are the richest collection of paintings, because the Novodevichy Convent has always occupied a privileged position. It includes icons that belonged to the numerous churches of the monastery. There are also unique exhibits - the tombstone iconostases of the princesses who are relatives of Peter the Great, as well as icons from the cells of the nuns of the monastery. Many icons trace their history back to the 16-17 centuries. In 1600, Boris Godunov, by his decree, presented to the Novodevichy Convent over 600 icons that had previously been part of the iconostasis of the Smolensk Cathedral. At the end of the 17th century, seven more churches were included in the monastery, for which icons were painted by the famous iconographers of the Armory - Fyodor Zubov, Simon Ushakov, Vasily Pakhomov. Of great artistic value is the icon "John the Baptist", which is made in a setting of blackened silver, dating back to the 16th century. This icon was included in the cell collection of Queen Irina Godunova. The exposition includes a collection of icons from a later period dating back to the 18-20th centuries.
A significant part of the exposition is a collection of precious fabrics, many of which were brought to the monastery from different countries of the world. Here, in the monastery workshop, they were used to sew ceremonial vestments, felonies and surplice for priestly vestments. An embroidery workshop worked at the Novodevichy Convent, in which amazing images were created, embroidered with silk and gold. The embroidered works of the 16th century craftswomen have survived to this day - "Praise to the Mother of God" and "The Mother of God of Smolensk".
A valuable exposition of the museum is made up of a collection of items with inset inscriptions. Here are the contributions of Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Princess Sophia Alekseevna, Boyar Khitrovo, Abbess Durova and other historical figures.
Part of the exposition is devoted to metal products, jewelry, handwritten books and documents dating back to different historical eras.
The structure of the museum complex of the Novodevichy Convent
Since 1994, a nunnery began to function here again, but it is still a functioning museum complex. The Novodevichy Convent is a real fortress made of bricks and white stone. The main buildings of the monastery date back to the 17th century. Part of the main entrance to the museum is the magnificent gateway Church of the Transfiguration. In the very center of the complex is the five-domed Smolensk Cathedral with a carved gilded iconostasis made by the masters of the Armory. The old bell tower with stone lace still announces the surroundings with the ringing of a bell cast under Ivan the Terrible.
An example of Russian cathedral architecture is the Assumption Church with a refectory and a famous shrine - the icon of the Iberian Mother of God. Since ancient times, the monastery has been a shelter for persons of the royal family, who came here of their own free will or in spite of it. On the territory of the monastery, the chambers of Irina Godunova, Evdokia Lopukhina, Evdokia Miloslavskaya and the Nadprudnaya tower, in which Princess Sophia were imprisoned, have been preserved.
Famous objects of the Novodevichy Convent
A picturesque park with a large pond;
- a cemetery at the monastery, where poets, writers, actors and politicians known throughout the country are buried.
Novodevichy Convent is a large museum complex and architectural ensemble located in a picturesque place of the capital.