December 31, the Smolny Cathedral will go to the ROC

The Smolny Voskresensky Cathedral, which is now part of the State Museum-Monetor "Isaacievsky Cathedral" ("Museum of the Four Cathedrals"), will be legally transferred to the St. Petersburg diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church on December 31.

This was reported by "Echo of Moscow" with reference to the leadership of the museum. Director of the Museum of the Monitor Nikolai Burov noted that he is not going to dismiss employees working in Smolny Cathedral.

Within a month, the temple will be under the actual control of the museum, after which church decoration, in particular, iconostases will appear there.

Smolny choir will last in the cathedral on December 26. When in the spring of this year we were talking about the transfer of the Smolny Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church, the director of the museum hoped that the diocese “had enough mind not to drive the choir to the street”, but now he would have to look for a temporary platform. The team will be able to move to the new building on Dumskaya street no earlier than three years later.

In July, the St. Petersburg diocese requested the transfer of the Cathedral from the city property to the ROC, but after a month of discussion, the St. Petersburg government decided to leave it with the museum. According to Burov, in the case of the Smolny Cathedral, there was not enough public support.

In November, the Union of Museums of Russia proposed introducing a three -year moratorium on the transfer of the church of religious buildings in which museums are now located.