RL 285/91 July 21, 1991 Museums versus the Church Oxana Antic The conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and Soviet museums, which has been simmering for years, has boiled over. The Church is insisting on the return of various religious objects and a number of church buildings that are now museums. Representatives of the museums, which often have no alternative premises, are accusing the Church of incompetency in its handling of national treasures. Efforts are now being made to find a solution to the dispute. At a recent session of the International Council of Museums, USSR Minister of Culture Nikolai Gubenko spoke about the conflict between museum officials and the Russian Orthodox Church over the future of church buildings currently serving as museums. The Church is insisting that these buildings be returned, while cultural workers fear that such a step might damage the nation's cultural heritage. The minister, not surprisingly, sided with the museums. He criticized the position taken by local soviets on the issue as mistaken, saying that they were receiving poor guidance from local church congregations, and pointed out that, while the state had handed back more than 3,500 churches, the Church did not have sufficient funds, priests, and other employees to deal with them. The minister then noted that "about 70 percent of museums and libraries are situated in buildings of cult character" and asked rhetorically: "Where are we supposed to put them?"1 The conflict between the Church and the museums, the origins of which date back to the October Revolution, gained momentum after Patriarch Aleksii sent a letter to the chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers, Ivan Silaev, on August 31, 1990, asking for confiscated Church property, including monasteries, churches, icons, relics, and vessels, to be returned.2 With the letter was a list of some 550 items that the Church wanted to recover. Fifty-four of the churches on the patriarch's list are now museums. On September 18, Silaev agreed to the request. Subsequently, the Russian government has been criticized in the press for failing to consult the state organs responsible for protecting national monuments and other parties concerned with the nation's cultural heritage and for not taking into account museum employees when it was making its decision.3 The roots of the problem of how to deal with church buildings that have been turned into museums were examined in an article in Izvestia entitled "Postface to a Decision of the Russian Government." The author of the article, Yu. Orlik, went to Kostroma to investigate the dispute caused by a plan to return the Trinity Cathedral of the Ipatiev Monastery to the Russian Orthodox Church. The cathedral, which is famous for a seventeenth-century fresco, currently houses the local museum of history and architecture. Its employees are opposed to handing back the cathedral, arguing that, if it is returned, the unique wall paintings will be destroyed. One representative of the Church later interviewed by Orlik, Bishop Aleksandr of Kostroma and Galich, showed great understanding of the problem of preserving works of art. He said that the cathedral would not be used for everyday services and agreed that some Church property should remain in museums. The opinions of Academician Dmitrii Likhachev, Director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Irina Antonova, and Chairman of the USSR Association of Restorers Savelii Yamshchikov were also mentioned. All three were quoted as having declared that "monuments of religious culture" should be returned to the Church but were also said to have warned against "careless handling of unique national treasures." The position of the Church was stated in uncompromising terms by Orthodox priest Vladimir Polosin, the chairman of the Committee for Freedom of Conscience, Confessions, Charity, and Welfare of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. According to Orlik, Polosin pointed out in a letter to the Russian parliament that churches were created for religious purposes, not as monuments of art. He said that the Ipatiev monastery, for example, had been confiscated in 1958, during Khrushchev's antireligion campaign. The priest also criticized the way in which the state was looking after church buildings, claiming that more often than not buildings under the protection of the Ministry of Culture were falling down. The USSR Cultural Foundation, on the other hand, has apparently sent an appeal to Boris El'tsin and the patriarch requesting that all churches of particular artistic or historical value retain museum status. Orlik's article ended with a warning. He cautioned that, if, as the Church was demanding, fifty-four collections were moved, the museum as an institution in Russia would be seriously damaged. He posed a similar question to the one later posed by the minister of culture: "Where will they be moved to?"4 A week later, Literaturnaya gazeta devoted almost a page to an interview with Yamshchikov, the country's chief restorer. On this occasion, Yamshchikov, who described himself as an Old Believer, was very critical of the Russian Orthodox Church. He said that Church officials were acting narrow-mindedly and accused one bishop, whom he did not name, of showing a total lack of understanding of the problem when he was discussing it with Yamshchikov. The chief restorer warned that moving the museums "into the street" would be a catastrophe for culture as a whole and insisted that some objects of art remain in the care of museums. The interviewer, Irme Mamaladze, suggested that it made no sense for the famous icon of the Virgin Mary from Tolgsk Monastery, for example, to remain in a museum and that, since sacred places or objects are of special significance to believers, they should be returned to the Church. Yamshchikov, however, was not convinced by these arguments and continued to insist that some twenty especially valuable items claimed by the Church be left in museums.5 Efforts are being made to resolve the conflict, but its sensitive nature and the lack of experience of many involved in the debate in discussing controversial issues in public is complicating matters. The debate has been plagued by emotional outbursts, which have made it more difficult to find a compromise. A Radio Rossiya correspondent who was present at a press conference in March at which the conflict between the Church and the museums was discussed said he was shocked by the way in which the debate was conducted. He said the news conference, organized in connection with the opening of an exhibition of paintings of Pskov dating from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth century, was turned into a battlefield by Yamshchikov and other cultural workers. Yamshchikov repeated some of the arguments he had used in his interview with Literaturnaya gazeta and again related the story of the intolerant Orthodox bishop, referring to him on this occasion as a "general of the Church." Among other things, the restorer accused the Church of allowing unique frescoes and other treasures to rot away. Commenting on the tone of the debate, the correspondent said, "if reason does not prevail, the losses could be catastrophic."6 A round-table discussion between museum workers and representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate took place in June. Deputies of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, which will soon pass laws on Church property, were also present. The director of the Solovki museum complex, Lyudmila Lopatova, wanted to know the reason for the Church's failure to answer the question why it was consistently demanding the return only of buildings used as museums. According to her, only 435 churches in Russia house museums, whereas 2,642 churches are being used by enterprises or have been turned into warehouses or living quarters, and over 1,000 buildings are empty.7 Church property, not only buildings and land but also icons and other valuable objects, was confiscated on a large scale after the Decree on Land nationalizing Church and monastery land was issued by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 26, 1917. In September, 1918, a further decree was issued making "citizens guilty of concealing Church property or supplying false information about this property" subject to the Revolutionary Tribunal. In a letter to the Politburo in March, 1922, Lenin gave instructions on how the confiscation of Church property should be carried out. These made it clear that the expropriated property was not to be used to combat the famine in the country but to house the Red Army and to meet other needs of the government. Lenin's letter was published in the Soviet press only in 1990. A number of other documents dealing with the confiscation of Church property have also appeared recently.8 Despite all the difficulties, many religious art treasures were saved by courageous individuals after the October Revolution and later placed in museums. In his interview with Literaturnaya gazeta, Yamshchikov described how he had traveled all over Russia searching for valuable icons and other religious items in order to stop them from being destroyed. The museums are, however, short on money and space. In some museums, religious art treasures are not on display to the public. In the cellar of the Museum of Art in Kaluga in 1989, for example, a museum employee discovered a collection of religious wood carvings dating from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. The find was reported by Radio Moscow, which called for an exhibition to be organized.9 A recent issue of Novoe vremya analyzed the background to the present conflict, including Khrushchev's antireligion campaign of the 1960s, in a surprisingly objective manner. The author of the article, Valerii Baidin, made a distinction between museums that contain few important exhibits and collections that are unique. He pointed out that the more important collections tend to require more space, describing them as suffocating within church walls. This would appear to be a reasonable argument. Collections containing unique works of art--not only icons but also paintings, furniture, etc.--would undoubtedly benefit from a purpose-built, fully-equipped modern building. Baidin suggested including a special paragraph on the status of Church property in the forthcoming Russian law on property. It should, he argued, provide for all property owned by the Church before the October Revolution to be returned and for all valuables confiscated by the state and now in museums to be declared--at least, de jure--Church property. Baidin then proposed that the two sides come to an agreement on the order in which the buildings housing museums are to be returned and set a schedule. He argued that, since the items in question form part of the nation's cultural heritage, the goverment should continue to bear responsibility for and exercise control over their use and over restoration work.10 On an experimental basis, some buildings are being shared by the Church and museums, but this is giving rise to new problems. The director of the state museum for the history of religion and atheism, which is in the famous Kazan cathedral in Leningrad, and Metropolitan Ioann of Leningrad and Ladoga have agreed that the church and the museum will, for the time being "live under one roof." The museum has new premises but needs time to move. The parishioners, however, are fed up with waiting and are staging protest demonstrations. Metropolitan Ioann has demanded that a commission be organized to study the museum's collection of religious items and that these then be handed over to the various religious denominations.11 The state has taken some steps to address the problem. In December, 1990, the RSFSR Supreme Soviet passed a resolution on "urgent measures concerning the protection of the national cultural and natural heritage of the peoples of the RSFSR." The Russian parliament also set up a special commission to make a detailed inventory of all "monuments of culture" by September 1, 1991. The future of the monuments will then be decided on a case-by-case basis. The fact that this commission was referred to in an article on the Church-museum conflict suggests that "monuments of culture" must include church buildings.12 These measures appear constructive and may well help to resolve the conflict, but they will need time to take effect. The state could also make a significant contribution by building new museums to house the collections kept in churches. The poor economic situation, however, makes that an unlikely prospect. Both cultural officials and the Russian Orthodox Church will have to make compromises and sacrifices. The authorities, for example, will have to allow churches still occupied by museums to be used for services, and each significant religious item will have to be dealt with separately. Only with material support from the state and good will and understanding on the part of the Church as well as the museums will a solution be found. If a solution is not found, however, the process of restoring property to the church will destroy the museums and endanger the nation's cultural heritage. 1 Radio "Mayak," June 5, 1991. 2 Soyuz, No. 47, 1990; Izvestia, February 19, 1991; Literaturnaya gazeta, No. 8, 1991; Radio Moscow, March 22, 1991. 3 Ibid. 4 Izvestia, February 19, 1991. 5 Literaturnaya gazeta, No. 8, 1991. 6 Radio Rossiya, March 22, 1991. 7 Central Television, "TSN," June 26, 1991; Radio Rossii, June 27, 1991. 8 Izvestiya TsK KPSS, No. 4, 1990. See also Vera Tolz, "Another Blow to Lenin's Image," Report on the USSR, No. 18, 1990, pp. 4-6; Stolitsa, No. 11/12, 1991. 9 Radio Moscow, February 14, 1989. 10 Novoe vremya, No. 27, 1991, pp. 46-47. 11 Trud, May 16, 1991. 12 Ibid.