A government decision handing control of St Petersburg’s famous St Isaac’s Cathedral from museum officials to the Russian Orthodox Church has unleashed a storm of protest. The row came to a head on 24 January when a leading parliamentarian, who happens to be Leo Tolstoy’s great-great grandson, defended the decision in an anti-Semitic tirade in which he blamed Jews for destroying churches.
“Observing the protests over the handover of St Isaac’s, I cannot but note an amazing paradox,” Pyotr Tolstoy, a deputy chairman in the Russian parliament, said at a news conference in Moscow. “People who are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who destroyed our temples after bursting out of the Pale of Settlement with revolver in hand in 1917, today their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, working in various very respectable places such as radio stations and legislative assemblies, are continuing the work of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers.”
The row over the handover, including questions of access to the cathedral and paying for its upkeep, came close to causing a brawl in St Petersburg’s legislative assembly. A public protest is planned for 28 January.
St Isaac’s is the world’s fourth largest cathedral. It was built in the 19th century by the French architect Auguste de Montferrand, and is famous for its marble and mosaics. Under the Soviets, it was turned first into an anti-religious museum, and then into a museum about the cathedral. Church services have been held in the cathedral since 1990, but the Russian Orthodox Church demanded full control.
Fears are growing that the Russian Orthodox Church may demand control of other cultural institutions, with a call for the buildings at Tauric Chersonese to be transferred to it. The ancient city is a Unesco World Heritage site in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.