In St. Petersburg, a court began on a lawsuit against the transfer of the Isaac's Cathedral

Today, March 13, in the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg, an administrative case began in the lawsuit of a group of Petersburgers against the transfer of the St. Isaac's Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Some of the journalists could not get into the crowded courtroom, and Judge Tatyana Matusyak allowed them to monitor the process of the corridor with an open door, Interfax reports.

The judge also granted the petition of one of the plaintiffs, the deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Boris Vishnevsky, on attracting to the process as interested parties of the State Museum-Museum "Isaac's Cathedral", the ROC, the culture committee of St. Petersburg and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

In addition to Vishnevsky, the plaintiffs are three local residents, the defendant is a committee of property relations of St. Petersburg.

Previously, Judge Matusyak considered cases of dismantling the memorial boards to Karl Mannerheim and Alexander Kolchak in St. Petersburg, rejecting the claim for dismantling the first of them and decided to remove the second.

The decision of the city authorities to transfer the St. Isaac's Cathedral no later than March 1, 2019 for the free use of the Russian Orthodox Church for 49 years caused disputes and conflicts, the inhabitants of St. Petersburg held protests, in the largest of them - about two thousand people took part in the Marse Field on the Marse Field. Almost 215 thousand signatures have collected the online Petiation “We demand to stop the transfer of the Isaac's Cathedral to the ROC!” .

Culture figures, in particular, director of the State Hermitage, President of the Union of Museums of Russia, Mikhail Piotrovsky , also opposed the transfer of the Isaacievsky cathedral.

PS The representative of the Committee for Property Relations of St. Petersburg stated at today's court session that the committee did not receive an official application from the Russian Orthodox Church on the transfer of the St. Isaac's Cathedral, therefore the KIO order on the procedure for preparing for the transfer of the ROC Cathedral “does not bear legal consequences”.

“Applications from a religious organization in the manner prescribed by federal law were not submitted. The decision cannot be made in his absence, ” Interfax quotes the Perater of the Committee.