On the eve of Easter, the management of the Museum of Moscow did not allow a service to be held in the Church of St. John the Evangelist

On May 1, 2011, an open letter from Abbot Peter (Eremeev) to the director of the Museum of Moscow, Galina Vedernikova, dated April 18, was published. The reason for the appeal was the refusal of the museum management to allow the Easter service to be held in the Church of St. John the Evangelist, handed over to the community.

The rector of the temple considers the official reason for the refusal – the unpreparedness of the new premises provided to the museum to host exhibitions – to be “not true” :

“Recently, at least 25 large exhibition projects have been implemented here on thousands of square meters. Which, according to the Museum of Moscow website, were visited by more than 700,000 people! Along with the renovated and equipped exhibition space, the office buildings of the Provision Stores complex are also in full swing.

The activities of the museum in new buildings can only be welcomed. But these buildings were handed over to you by the capital authorities for the Museum to move from the temple! Was it that difficult to do? Is it really an exhibition in a temple with a total area of ​​648 sq.m. (!) cannot be moved to new buildings with a volume of 22,500 sq.m.? Is it really difficult for the museum management to move from 1500 sq.m. church buildings into renovated buildings provided for this by the Moscow Government, and then create new museum divisions here?" Sources

• Letter from the RPU rector to the director of the Museum of Moscow on Holy Monday 2011 // Official website of the Russian Orthodox University. 2011. April 21.