Vladimir Putin has gifted one of Russia’s most famous religious icons to the Russian Orthodox Church, ostensibly as a thank you for supporting his invasion of Ukraine.
The decision to move the 600-year-old painting from a museum has been criticized as unwise due to its fragility.
Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, presided over a Sunday service at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow next to the 15th-century “Trinity” by medieval painter Andrei Rublev.
“President Putin has made a historic decision to return this miraculous icon,” he said. “The icon will be in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for a year so that Muscovites and guests of the capital can bow to this great shrine.”
Art experts describe the “Trinity” as a masterpiece by “Russia’s most important medieval artist”. It shows three angels considered the Holy Trinity and the embodiment of unity, peace, harmony, love and humility.
Video footage showed thousands of Russians queuing to view the work, held in a glass cabinet and guarded by two police officers.
But art experts have said it is deeply irresponsible of the Kremlin to move the masterpiece and allow it to be displayed outside the sterilized confines of a modern museum.
“Moving the icon, whose condition is already bordering on emergency, will only accelerate the process of its destruction, which will be extremely difficult to stop,” the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a letter to the Russian Minister of Culture.
The painting was originally kept in the Trinity Cathedral of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra in the old Russian town of Sergiyev Posad, northeast of Moscow, until the 1920s when the Communists handed it over to the Tretyakov Museum. Trinity Cathedral briefly put the icon on display last summer and the Orthodox Church has said it intends to house it permanently.
Patriarch Kirill, a suspected former Soviet spy, has been a strong supporter of Mr Putin’s war in Ukraine and key to his propaganda.
Mr Putin believes the Church dominates millions of Russians, especially in rural areas where they are more religious, and he makes sure to be seen in church on religious holidays.
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