At the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Orthodox Pentecost had a special flavor on Sunday, June 4. Patriarch Kirill was able to celebrate it in the presence of the most illustrious Russian Orthodox icon, that of the Trinity, painted in the fifteenth century by Andrei Rublev.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church welcomed the great return of this work of art to the ecclesiastical fold during his sermon. "It comes back to us so that we can ask God to help our country and pray for our Orthodox President Vladimir Putin," he said.

An icon in danger

Andrei Rublev's Trinity is the "most internationally famous" work of Russian religious art, says Nadieszda Kizenko, a specialist in Russian religious history at the University of Albany in the United States. "She was even the subject of the film 'Andrei Rublev' by the famous director Andrei Tarkoski in 1966," said Alar Kilp, a historian specializing in the role of the Church in the post-Soviet space at the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Tartu (Estonia).

An icon exhibited at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow since the Soviet regime confiscated it in 1929. To the great despair of the Russian Patriarchate, which has been seeking for decades to gather under its holy protection all the relics and icons it has been deprived of by the communist regime.

But the handing over of the Trinity to religious authorities has always been considered delicate, especially for technical reasons. More than 600 years old, it is very fragile and requires a level of care "that only a museum can show," said the managers of the Tretyakov Gallery at the end of May, when this transfer was confirmed by the Russian authorities. The last time this icon was moved, for just a few days in 2022, it then returned "seriously damaged," notes the Moscow Times.

The controversy surrounding the opportunity to remove this fragile icon from the museum has even shaken the Orthodox Church within it. The head of the council of experts in liturgical art was removed from his post a few days ago for showing too little enthusiasm for the idea of transferring the Holy Trinity to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Superstition

Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill are therefore taking the risk of damaging or even destroying one of Russia's most important artistic masterpieces. And why? The Orthodox Patriarchate assured that it was high time that this work returned to its natural religious environment. But this argument does not hold water for the experts interviewed by France 24. "A chapel was built within the Tretyakov Gallery in order to be able to display the icons in a respectful setting for the faithful," says Nadieszda Kizenko.

In the context of the war in Ukraine, it is difficult not to see it primarily as a political act. "While there is still no military victory on the horizon, all Putin has left is to turn to God for help," Georgy Bovt, a Russian political scientist, told The Moscow Times.

There is indeed a tradition in Russia of "miraculous icons", supposed to have helped Russian princes to overcome hardships. Legend has it that Joseph Stalin, head of the very atheistic Soviet regime, flew the icon of the Mother of God from Tikhvin in a plane over Moscow in 1941 to protect the capital from the Nazi threat.

Vladimir Putin would be all the more inclined to rely on superior forces to guide his "special military operation" in Ukraine as he is known "to have shown a certain penchant for superstition," says Nadieszda Kizenko.

Thus, the new Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, inaugurated in 2020, is a compendium of symbols supposed to protect the army. Its belfry measures 75 meters - recalling the 75 years since the Soviet victory over the Nazis - while another tower rises to 14.18 meters, symbolizing the 1,418 days that the Great Patriotic War lasted. "The diameter of the central dome is 22.43 meters, which is a reference to the supposed time - 22:43 - of the official German surrender," Kizenko said.

A not really miraculous icon

But if it is to try to put God on his side in this war, Vladimir Putin has chosen his icon badly. Andrei Rublev's Trinity is one of the few "not to be a miraculous icon," said Kristina Stoeckl, a sociologist at the Guido Carli International University of Social Studies who specializes in state-church relations in Russia.

"This icon has never been politically important. It was only discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century and it counts much more in the eyes of the intellectual and religious elite than in those of the rest of the population," says Nadieszda Kizenko.

For Alar Kilp, the handing over of this icon cements "a little more the increasingly close collaboration between the Kremlin and the Orthodox Church". Patriarch Kirill strongly supported the military invasion of Ukraine by Russia and "he was particularly active in September 2022, a complicated period for the government, which had then decreed a very sensitive partial mobilization," he recalls.

A pledge for Patriarch Kirill

In mid-May, the regime had also ordered the transfer of the silver sarcophagus of Alexander Nevsky - Russian national hero and prince of Novgorod in the thirteenth century - from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg to a monastery.

Another victory for Patriarch Kirill. And this Kremlin ally needed it. "He is in a difficult situation because he is like the CEO of a company that has failed in its main role: to maintain the unity of the Orthodox Church, since Ukraine has left its fold," Kizenko said.

By transferring to him a famous relic and a world-famous icon, the Kremlin provides him with arguments "to silence any criticism internally," notes Kristina Stoekl. He appears as the one who brings precious treasures home.

Finally, the collateral benefit of this staging of religion in times of war: "the Kremlin seeks to give a metaphysical twist to its war," says Kristina Stoekl. By giving more voice to the clergy, the government is also trying to suggest that it is "a clash between the traditional values defended by Orthodox and believing Russia against the atheist West," notes Kristina Stoekl.

This is not much different from what Joseph Stalin did during World War II when he mobilized the Church to support the army. At the time too, "it was presented as a fight against the enemies of God while the Russians were on the side of the believers," says Alar Kilp.

And it doesn't matter if the icon of the Trinity has never had the political dimension that the Kremlin and patriarchy are trying to give him. For Nadieszda Kizenko, Vladimir Putin and Kirill "behave more like fetishists" than respectful believers. According to her, this transfer represents one of the most important affronts "to Russian culture since the beginning of the war". In his eyes, the Trinity was one of the few major Orthodox religious works that still escaped the political sphere. Now, for her, it is "also soiled".

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