MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. There are no plans to transfer more museum valuables to the Russian Orthodox Church, Natalia Chechel, deputy director of the Russian culture ministry’s museums and foreign ties department, told TASS on Thursday, commenting on the transfer of Andrey Rublev’s celebrated icon of the Holy Trinity and Alexander Nevsky’s silver shrine.
"This is not a precedent. Transfers doesn’t happen often but happen all the same. So far, there are no other transfers," she said.
The Trinity is an icon created by famous Russian painter Andrey Rublev in the first half of the 15th century. A masterpiece of Russian art, it is believed to have been painted by Rublev for the Trinity Monastery (now the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius) at the request of Reverend Nikon of Radonezh (1350-1426), a disciple of St. Sergius of Radonezh and the second abbot of the monastery after him. The icon was moved to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 1929 and has been kept there ever since.
On May 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to transfer the icon from the Tretyakov Gallery to the Russian Orthodox Church. Later, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill and Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova endorsed an agreement on the icon’s transfer to the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. The agreement was signed for a term of 49 years with possible extension.
The icon was displayed at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral from June 3. On July 19, it was taken to the Russian Art Research and Restoration Center named after Academician I.E. Grabar. A room at the Grabar restoration center has been set aside to house the ‘Holy Trinity,’ where there will be special temperature and humidity conditions, a gas fire suppression system and technical protection means to keep the relic safe. A council consisting of top-notch experts in research, conservation and restoration of medieval Russian art are expected to decide on the icon’s restoration or conservation by the end of July.
It was reported earlier that the State Hermitage Museum would delegate to the St, Petersburg Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church the right to keep Alexander Nevsky’s silver shrine at the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg for 49 years. St. Alexander Nevsky’s relics will be placed inside the reliquary. According to Hermitage Director General Mikhail Piotrovsky, these terms are provided in an agreement signed between the State Hermitage and the St. Petersburg Eparchy. The ministry of culture has signed a corresponding executive order.
The silver reliquary for the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky was made of 1.5 tons of silver at the order of Empress Elizabeth (1709-1762) and was placed in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. It was taken to the State Hermitage Museum in the 1920s as a jewelry masterpiece and has been kept there ever since.