On the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory: The "People’s War, a Sacred War" exhibition in the Museum of the History of Religion in Saint Petersburg

In the year of the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War Museum of the History of Religion presents “People’s War, a Sacred War” that is focused at a subject, which has never been before popular in the museum expositions — the accomplishments of the Russian Orthodox Church during the war. Themed in few sections over 100 exhibits are from the funds, Academic Archive and Research Library of the museum, private collections and school museums of St. Petersburg present the most important stages of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the period from 1941 to 1946.

The first one is the inclusion of Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia Nicholas (Yarushevich) in 1942 to the State Commission for the determination and investigation of murderous acts of fascist aggressors and their accomplices. Received by the Commission information later appeared at the Nuremberg trials as documentary evidence of the prosecution. The next stage was the first after twenty-five years break Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church that has taken place in 1943. Council elected the new Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia. Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Sergius (Stragorodsky) has become the one. Liquidated in 1918 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was also re-established at the Council. The story about the Church work during the war ends at the exhibition with an acquaintance with the history of the Leningrad Theological Academy that were opened in 1946.

The exhibition features the photographs: some of these depict the ruined temples and the others are photographic evidence of an active religious life in the Churches that remained in Moscow, Moscow Region, Kaluga, Leningrad, Kursk and Smolensk Regions. The exposition also includes the unique editions of the Moscow Patriarchate: published in 1942-1944 years books and magazines, photographs that fixed the events of the war years. In addition, the exhibition includes relics, saving a memory of the protection of the Brest Fortress, and a set of exhibits dedicated to St. George's and Alexander Nevsky’s symbols — military insignia, awards, medals and photographs of their Cavaliers.

A special section of the exhibition is devoted to 900 days and nights of besieged Leningrad: food stamps, certificates and passes letting to go around the city at a nighttime, and the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" coexist with miraculously survived icons and the prayer-books. The museum staff employees, in whose families memorable exhibits of the tragedy of Leningrad were kept for 70 years, have submitted many items to the exposition.

The materials from the Academic Archive of the Museum of Science, documented the everyday heroism of staff of the Museum of the History of Religion, who didn’t go to the front and kept the remaining museum collections in the besieged Leningrad, also evidence the tragedy. Visitors' book of 1939-1943 saved unique comments with words of gratitude from the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army.

The exhibition runs until July 14, 2015.