The authorities of St. Petersburg transferred the St. Isaac's Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church, taking on the costs of its maintenance. What now?

For more than 120 thousand signatures, a petition against the transmission of the Russian Orthodox Church Isaakievsky Cathedral has collected in terms of incomplete two days. On January 13, those whom the speaker of the city parliament called “provocateurs”, “instigators” and “arsonists of the war” - citizens, outraged by a sudden and carefully hidden decision of the authorities met at the walls of the temple.

Noting the Orthodox Christmas, the St. Petersburg governor Georgy Poltavchenko announced that the issue of transferring the St. Isaac's Cathedral of the Church was resolved. Such treachery was outraged by the townspeople to the limit - after all, back in September 2015, the same Poltavchenko refused to convey the cathedral of the St. Petersburg Metropolis, reasonably considering this economically inappropriate. “In the case of transferring the cathedral to the use of the St. Petersburg diocese, all expenses for its maintenance, restoration and protection will fall on the owner-the city, which will entail a reduction in financing of socially significant articles of the city’s budget. In the current economic situation, these additional expenses in the city budget are not provided, ”the Smolny press service explained then.

The “Museum of four cathedrals”, headed by Nikolai Burov, contained not only himself, but also the monument. Every year, Isaacievsky visited more than two million people, the revenue from the sale of tickets exceeded 436 million rubles, and the total income for 2016 amounted to almost 800 million, after taxes from this amount, the city treasury was replenished by 50-70 million.

And suddenly, after the long January holidays of 2017, the mayor said that after the transfer of the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, its further maintenance will be carried out at the expense of the church. He was immediately objected by the head of the legal service of the Moscow Patriarchate of Ksenia Chernoga: they say, the question of whose funds the cathedral will be contained will have to be prescribed in the contract. And she recalled that "the church has the right to count on the inclusion in the target program - the federal or city - to obtain subsidies for the purpose of restoration." At the same time, Mrs. Chernoga expressed the hope that the issue of restoration can be considered irrelevant for quite some time: "The temple is in good condition, and its maintenance will not require great investments." Well, yes, the museum annually invested about 200 million from the funds earned by him.

The recent doubts were dispelled by the recent press conference by Vice-Governor Mikhail Mokratsov, who stated that all expenses for the restoration of the cathedral after his transfer to the Russian Orthodox Church would carry the city: “The object is transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church for free use, but the city remains its owner. Based on this, we will be obliged to bear the costs of the maintenance of the Isaac's Cathedral as an object of protection in proper condition. ”

The issue is resolved

The press conference did not clarify the main question: when, when and on what basis was the “final decision”, which Poltavchenko announced?

Moreover, there is no intelligible information about the re -application of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the law, applications submitted by religious organizations are subject to publication within a week from the moment they are accepted for consideration. But there is no such statement on the website of the property relations committee.

On January 10, TASS said that the appeal was-but not to Poltavchenko, but to Prime Minister Medvedev, signed by the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Barsanuphius-back in April last year.

Mikhail Mokratsov from the answer to the questions whether the order was published, why on the Kio website the application was not published (the law requires to publish the application itself, and not just information about it), from whom and when it arrived, it has evaded. The official admitted that the patriarch’s appeal to Poltavchenko was, but refused to say when: “It was not addressed to me, so I will not call the date.”

The contract, promised Moklatsov, will be written very rigidly, and in case of failure to fulfill the conditions assigned in it, the document on the transfer of the cathedral to the use of the Russian Orthodox Church may be terminated.

Little Bednyak

Under the pressure of journalists, the official was forced to admit that so far no one had yet believed what the city’s content and restoration of the cathedral would cost the city and where the necessary funds would come from. Moklatsov says that experts will then consider how much money is needed for Isaac.

So far we calculated how much the objects already transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church cost. Within the framework of the Federal Target Program “Culture of Russia” (2012-2018), for example, 20 billion 451 million 590 thousand rubles were allocated to preserve religious monuments. That is, almost half of all funds allocated for the restoration of cultural heritage objects throughout the country (42 billion 838.28 million). For comparison: to preserve the most valuable monuments of wooden architecture of the Russian North - only 564.25 million; on the monuments of the entire Golden Ring - 1969.88 million.

The city spent almost a billion on the Troitsko-Izmail Cathedral for the entire time of restoration work (2006-2016). For the restoration of only facades and colonnades of the Kazan Cathedral over the past four years - about 150 million to the restoration of the Smolny Cathedral taken from the museum, about 473 million have already gone.

The deed of indivisible

Along the way, considerable costs on the preparation of alternative museum squares - instead of Smolny and Sampsonievsky Cathedrals, fell on the city. As Nikolai Burov explained, two objects provided in return (on the Duma and large sea) require a lot of investments and time to bring them into compliance with museum requirements. The exposition dedicated to the Poltava victory in Sampsonievsky is now stored in temporary removable squares. There was a 141 museum item in the cathedral, it took a year and a half to transmit and design them. According to Burov’s estimates, for a similar operation when transferring Isaacievsky (where museum items are more than 20 thousand), from two to three years can leave.

Colossal costs will require not only ensuring their preservation, but also restoration: for the next 10 years, only three and a half billion will require painting only by painting, the director of the museum notes.

The lion's share of the museum objects of Isaac is an integral part of the cathedral. This is first. And secondly-all of them are part of the Museum Fund of the Russian Federation. According to the Law, "Museum collection is indivisible." The museum subject is guaranteed not only the safety, but also ensuring the possibility of its public representation and study.

In the case of the transfer of the Cathedral of the Church, how will they cost the royal gates (now they are half -spread so that you can see a rare beauty of the stained glass)? What will happen to the iconostasis of malachite and azurit - will the huge candlesticks and lamps stand there? Will the walls make modern icons for “attach and put a candle” (as already done in the chapel of Alexander Nevsky)? Will the marble floor for the metropolitan place will be burned in the middle and get caught by carpets, as in Kazan - and then the opportunity to admire the dome from the center of the temple? These and many other issues are being discussed now by Petersburgers, but not “contracting” sides.

The FZ-73 requires, by the way, not to use the cultural heritage object (with the exception of specially equipped with the requirements of the fire safety of the premises) to store religious items, “including candles and lamp oil”. How to be with it?

But most of all, according to Nikolai Burov, he is worried about the fate of the museum employees - now almost 400 people plus 60 guides involved in the summer period work in it on an ongoing basis. Many have been serving here for decades.

At a press conference, the vice-governor of Mokratsov (recognizing that the city did not financially support the museum in any way) instead of gratitude, the team hastened to attribute the achieved successes to simple luck: “They were lucky to earn money by caring commercial activities. They have huge traffic, how many tourists! They showed that they know how to work well and earn - I am sure that [museum employees] will not be lost. ”

Bishop Tikhon assured that excursion services will be saved - for which they will create a special church agency working due to taxation taxes. The repertoire is promised diverse - with the theme of both religious and art history. But "there will be no excursions for militant atheists."

Nikolai Burov has no doubt that if the transmission of the ROC is the ROC, the following will be the next to save on the blood. Speaking about the future of the museum, which until recently was called the “Museum of the Four Cathedrals”, its director resorted to a gloomy comparison with a person who was first brought to disability, cutting his leg, then made a difficult disabled person, taking his hand away, and now they are planning to cut off his head.

Answering the question whether the Russian Orthodox Church intends to receive and saved on blood, Bishop Tikhon smiled into the beard: “To the Savior of every Orthodox person, a great interest. Every Orthodox temple should be a temple. ”

Petersburg

reaction

On January 13, in the square opposite the Isaac's Cathedral, about 500 people gathered, according to the “new”. The action against the transfer of the Isaac's Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church was held in the format of a meeting with deputies and did not require coordination with the city authorities. As the organizers of the meeting noted - the deputies of the Petersburg Sachs from Yabloko and the Party of Growth - the lack of official resolution significantly affected the number of protesters.

During the action, which lasted almost an hour, law enforcement officers practically did not interfere with what was happening. Only distributors of agitmaterials attracted their attention: the police seized the circulation of the opposition newspaper, citing the absence of weekends in it.

The Cossacks, who a day earlier promised to help the police in the fight against protesters did not come to the Isaacievsky Cathedral. Therefore, the most noticeable event of the evening was a performance with wax church candles. Activists who distributed candles invited everyone to remember the status of the museum lost by Isaac.

The next action “Against the arbitrariness of the St. Petersburg authorities” (this time agreed) should be held on January 28 on the Marse Field. This was reported to reporters by the co -chair of the St. Petersburg branch "Parnassus" Andrei Pivovarov.

Seraphim Romanov, "New Gazeta in St. Petersburg"

PS

The website of the Committee on Property Relations has published an order involving the transfer of the St. Isaac's Cathedral for 49 years for free use of the Russian Orthodox Church. The document was signed on December 30, 2016. In the schedule attached to the document, the Culture Committee together with the Museum "Isaac's Cathedral" is prescribed until March 1 by S.G. "Determine the possibility of withdrawal of an object from the operational management of the institution without providing instruments to the establishment of its activities"