Moscow, October 14, 2016
The Commission for Monument Art of the Moscow City Duma has supported the proposal to install artistic images of the patriarchs of Moscow and All Russia near the Patriarchal Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The decision was made Thursday at a meeting of the Commission for Monument Art at the Moscow City Duma, reports TASS.
“We have endorsed erecting artistic images and portraits of the patriarchs of Moscow and All Russia. Whether they will be busts or other forms will be decided by artistic unions. An internal competition will also be held for to design the monuments,” the commission’s chairman Igor Voskresensky said.
According to the director of the Department of Monuments, Commemorative Signs, and Memorial Plaques of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the City of Moscow Sergei Polovinkin, the initiator of installation of these busts acted in a very professional way.
“He appealed to the Union of Moscow Architects, the Union of Moscow Sculptors, and the Artists Trade Union of Russia, so we are presently not considering the finished work. It is these three creative unions that will hold the competitive selection for who will implement this project and design the bases and busts. Thus the tradition begun at the time of the creation of the sculptures in Christ the Savior Cathedral continues near it,” S. Polovinkin noted.
Furthermore, he noted that the Moscow City Architecture Committee and the Union of Moscow Architects will suggest concrete places for installation of the patriarchs’ images.
Earlier the chairman of the Moscow State Duma Commission for Culture and Mass Communications Evgeny Gerasimov spoke about the idea of unveiling the monuments to the patriarchs of Moscow and All Russia on Patriarshy Bridge close to Christ the Savior Cathedral. It has been proposed to install busts of all primates of the Russian Church, the last of whom will be Alexey II.
The project is timed to coincide with the 100th jubilee of the restoration of the patriarchate in Russia which will be celebrated in November 2017. It will be financed from private funds.
