During life, it relies on the rank

In Moscow, near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, monuments will erect all the Patriarchs of Moscow and All Rus', including the current Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Cyril. This was reported by Izvestia.

Archpriest Leonid Kalinin, chairman of the ROC Expert Council for Church Art, Architecture and Restoration, told the publication that on November 25, three monuments of the 16th Patriarch of Moscow Iov, Germogen and Tikhon were already erected. According to Archpriest, the project is implemented with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill.

“Patriarchs are figures outside of time. Each of them took its historical place. And the current patriarch is a figure already written on the tablets of history. History is not measured by the length of a person’s life,” Kalinin noted.

On December 6, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin signed an order to install monuments. It says that all costs will be taken by OJSC "Moscow Combine of Building Materials". The document states that the ISSM will also improve the surrounding area. The amount of financing will be 50 million rubles. After the installation of monuments, their content will be ensured by the prefecture of the Central City District.

"The project on the construction of the gallery of monuments was approved by the commission under the MGD on monumental art. There were no comments from the Moskomarchitecture either," said Yevgeny Gerasimov, head of the Moscow City Duma Commission on Culture and Mass Communications.

Bronze figures about 2 m high are on pedestals on which boards with the text of the life of the patriarchs are located. The author of the monuments is the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov. According to him, the models of all the remaining 13 monuments have already been made in clay. But what will the monument look like Patriarch Cyril, the sculptor is kept secret. “We understand the scale and seriousness of work. We consult with church historians about the details of the life of the patriarchs. Each of them has its own era and historical role. They cannot look like the twin brothers,” Shcherbakov said.

Shcherbakov is the author of the monument to Prince Vladimir on Borovitskaya Square in Moscow. In January 2016, the International Council for the preservation of monuments and sights - the UNESCO advisory body - did not recommend the Russian authorities to erect a monument at this place. It was noted that this "can have negative consequences" for the Kremlin as an object of the World Heritage.

However, on November 4, 2016, a monument on Borovitskaya Square was opened in the presence of Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill. On November 19 of the same year, Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky stated that UNESCO accepted reports on the installation of the monument and "they completely satisfied them."