Patriarchal Museum of Church Art
The Patriarchal Museum of Church Art is an art museum featuring monuments of church art from the 5th to the 20th centuries. The museum is located in the ambulatory (bypass gallery) of the lower Transfiguration Church of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The collection includes works of church art from the 5th to the 20th centuries that were gifted to the Primates of the Russian Orthodox Church – the ever-memorable Patriarch Alexy II and His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. The exhibits on display demonstrate the diversity of Christian culture from various countries, schools and artistic traditions. The majority of the collection consists of icons, varying in style, technique, date of creation and state of preservation. The exhibition provides insight into the historical and geographical aspects of the development of iconography as a genre of church art. Paintings from Byzantium, Palestine, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Georgia and Northern Europe are displayed alongside Russian icons from the Novgorod, Moscow, Pskov and Stroganov schools. According to the exhibition curator, the cleric of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Archpriest Georgy Martynov, the earliest examples of Russian icon painting in the exhibition date back to the 14th century – these are icons of the Archangel Michael and the Archangel Gabriel. One of the exhibits is an Egyptian Fayum portrait (the technique and style of Fayum portraits lead researchers to assert that they became, in a sense, one of the prototypes for the earliest works of icon painting). Museum visitors can see Palestinian mosaics from the 5th–6th centuries, a Byzantine icon of the Nativity of Christ from the late 14th – early 15th century, cast icons from Byzantium, Georgia and Asia Minor dating from the 5th–12th centuries, a chalice from the 12th century, a rare iconographic image of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious with the “double miracle” from the 16th century, an icon of the Mother of God of Palestine with the Child from the Sienese School of the 14th century, an icon of the Fiery Ascension of the Prophet Elijah with the saint’s life scenes from the 16th century, a rare collection of fine menaion icons known as “tablets” from the 16th century (which depict saints arranged on 12 double-sided icons according to the order of the church calendar), and a triptych painted by V.M. Vasnetsov for the 1899 World’s Fair in Paris. Scholarly study of the collection is ongoing, and the publication of a catalogue is planned. Shortly after the main exhibition opens, an additional exhibition hall will be equipped. Furthermore, since 1998, the gallery of the Transfiguration Church has housed a branch of the Museum of the History of Moscow – the Museum of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. This exhibition is dedicated to the history of the cathedral – its creation, destruction and rebirth.
Address: Moscow, Volkhonka St., 15
