The icon «Trinity» by Andrei Rublev was transferred for free use to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, according to the website of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The corresponding agreement was signed by Patriarch Kirill and Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova. In mid-May, Vladimir Putin decided to transfer Rublev's work to the Russian Orthodox Church.
“A historic event has taken place,” the patriarch said after signing the document. “Today we symbolically testify that the country lives in a different time, in a different era. The time has passed, we hope, irrevocably, when sacred objects were withdrawn from the Church, and the time has come when sacred objects, even of great cultural and historical value, are returned to the Church.”
In early June, despite the objections of the restorers, the «Trinity» was transferred from the Tretyakov Gallery to serve in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
At the end of May, the museum’s expert council concluded that the condition of the icon does not allow it to be removed from the gallery in the near future “due to the complex and unstable state, as well as the unpredictability of the ongoing process of negative changes.” The Russian Orthodox Church told Interfax that they reacted to the experts' conclusions «with understanding» and noted that the issue of the preservation of the shrine remains «at the forefront.»
Putin gives Rublev's Trinity to the Russian Orthodox Church. What is known about this and why restorers and art historians oppose
The icon was kept in the Tretyakov Gallery at the required humidity and temperature. Last summer, museum staff temporarily handed it over to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, from where it was returned a few days later. At the time, experts reported no “visible signs of deterioration,” but by September, they identified 61 “significant changes” to the piece after it was removed from the museum. As a result, they decided to leave the “Trinity” in the depository, excluding it from the exhibition “for an indefinite period.”
It was not only restorers who opposed the transfer of the icon, who considered that the icon was being “experimented”, but also some clergymen. Thus, the patriarch dismissed Archpriest Leonid Kalinin from his post due to his «obstruction» of the transfer of the icon to the church. Kalinin told RBC that in the Trinity Cathedral, where they plan to exhibit a monument of the 15th century, there are no conditions for its preservation.