What Is Wrong With Returning Rublev's "Trinity" to the Church?
Xenia Loutchenko
On May 15th, 2023, Russian-language media reported that President Putin had returned Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity” icon, currently housed in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the silver ark that used to contain the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, housed in The Hermitage, to the Russian Orthodox Church. (A brief press release in English can be found here.) Moscow Patriarchate announced that the greatest and most famous of all Russian icons will stay in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for a year before being permanently moved to its previous home in Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Art historians and restorers are saying that this decision means the death penalty for the extremely fragile fifteenth-century icon which has suffered damage after the three-day “visit” to the Lavra in July of 2022. According to the uniform expert consensus, the fragile state of the priceless artifact does not permit any relocation outside of the stable conditions of the museum. Museum experts have been fighting the Moscow Patriarchate’s attempts to repossess the icon for the last few decades.
Xenia Loutchenko offers her commentary on what may have prompted the unilateral decision by President Putin.
The only thing I can assume about the real reason for the transfer of the Andrei Rublev's "Trinity" icon and Alexander Nevsky's ark to the Russian Orthodox Church is that Putin is afraid. He has a primitive superstitious attitude towards everything religious. I suppose that this increase in ritual practices during the war indicates some archaic magical attitudes. Putin has already blessed the distribution of paper icons to the troops in the Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine. It didn't help the course of the war. The decision was made to “increase the sacrality.” It is a form of placating the Russian Orthodox Church so that they would pray better. Like, "We're giving them the best spiritual weapon."
The transfer of Alexander Nevsky's ark is a total joke because it's just an ark. The relics are in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. They absolutely do not need any historical ark for worship and veneration of the relics. In general, this is a completely caricatured story. On the other hand, the situation with the "Trinity" is certainly a drama, if not a tragedy. The Russian Orthodox Church undoubtedly bolsters some of its symbolic capital. This is another big step in the context of unconditional support for the war at an official church level and the creation of an Orthodox design for some non-existent ideology, with the help of which they [the authorities] raise the fighting spirit throughout the country.
Regarding the risk of damage to the icon after its transfer to the Russian Orthodox Church, of course, art historians should comment on that. As far as I can judge from publications and statements that have appeared since 2008 when the question of the transfer of the "Trinity" first arose, the risks are quite serious. Art historians have always been categorically against it. They did not say so out of any proprietary considerations. They are responsible for the preservation of monuments and culture. In this area of their responsibility and love for their subject, they have always been quite firm in refusing to give away icons. The only example of successful interaction between the museum and the church is the case of the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God, which is exhibited in a special shrine in the church at the Tretyakov Gallery. But this church is de facto one of the museum halls, the icon is exhibited in the church space but in museum conditions. It is present in an organic environment for itself. Judging by how many disputes there were around the Vladimir icon, I think that such conditions are unlikely to be provided for the "Trinity" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral. Especially since it should not be moved at all.
Let’s also address one of the most popular arguments that arise in such debates. The argument goes that icons were created for the church, and therefore that's where they belong, not in museums. This is a completely insignificant thesis, although it is indeed the most common one.
First of all, historically speaking, the church usually did not preserve icons. They were treated in a rather utilitarian manner - renewed, painted over, and repainted. Russian icon painting was only discovered at the end of the nineteenth - early twentieth century, thanks in part to the development of restoration technologies. Before that, it was not valued at all, and the icons were mostly dark faces hidden under massive casings. Nobody saw them, and they were not considered valuable. They were discovered by museum workers and art historians. It was simply a different attitude toward cultural heritage at the time when ancient frescoes were knocked off the walls and covered up with some academic images. It was the norm. The churches themselves sometimes created conditions for the preservation of the particularly valuable items removed from circulation due to their antiquity, including icons - church treasuries, storerooms for antiquities, and so on. In other words, the church itself tried to provide museum-type storage, removing items from the church space.
If we delve deep into the centuries, the church went through a period of iconoclasm, which was a reaction to idolatry. In Byzantium, icons, boards, and paints were revered as hyper-holy objects. In response, there was a wave of iconoclasm, when icons were banned and considered idols. Later on, the church uniformly developed the doctrine of icon veneration, which states that the image painted on the board is revered, not the board and paint themselves. The prototype. From the church's point of view, the effectiveness of prayer, its sincerity or power, do not differ much between a paper icon that you bought in a church shop and placed with reverence in your home and the "Trinity." In this sense, a copy is certainly enough. There is no magic in the original if we venerate not the board, but the one depicted on it. Moreover, copies can be very high-quality. The board and paint themselves do not have any sacred power. However, they have cultural value, historical value, and symbolic meaning. In addition, “The Trinity”, in particular, is a very strong theological statement, and it is significant as a material expression of a very complex dogma about the Trinity. Therefore, in theory, the church should be interested primarily in preserving the original so that future generations of theologians and icon painters have the opportunity to learn. But immediate accessibility for mass veneration was chosen instead.
This approach continues in the vein of magical thinking that has been planted and practiced by the Moscow Patriarchate for decades. From veneration of the "Holy Fire" to the "Belt of the Theotokos" to the proliferation of the stories of the myrrh-streaming icons and the hysteria of the "defilement of the holy objects", the idolatry of the material objects and infusing them with special powers has been successfully propagated in the minds of the faithful. This shamanic cult is now poised to claim a new victim, one of Russia's greatest and truly sacred cultural treasures.
The commentary first appeared in Russian on the Echo blog.
Xenia Loutchenko is a freelance journalist and an expert on religious issues in the Russian media and the role of the media in church–public relations. She graduated from the Department of Journalism of Moscow State University in 2001 and in 2009 defended her PhD thesis on “The Internet in Information and Communication Activities of Religious Organizations in Russia.” Loutchenko is the author of The Orthodox Internet: Guidebook (2004, 2006), a book on the lives of priests’ wives (2012), and dialogues with Priest Sergei Kruglov (2015).