Exhibition On History Of Church-state Cooperation In Russia Opens In Moscow

The historical documentary exhibition "Orthodoxy and the Russian State. 10th-20th Centuries" opened at the Federal Archives exhibition hall in Moscow, RIA Novosti was told at the exhibition hall's press centre. Against the background of paintings, drawings, works of decorative and applied arts, visitors of the exhibition will be able to see documents drawn up and signed personally by the heads of state and hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church. Unique hand-written books and documents, the authors of many of which have by now been canonized are on public display for the first time ever. The Central Archives of the Federal Security Service of Russia has put on display documents evidencing reprisals against church ministers and laymen after the church was separated from the state in 1918. This is the first time the recording of a meeting between Stalin and Metropolitan Sergius, Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See and the future Patriarch, which was held in 1943 during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), has been put on display. That meeting had largely predetermined the change of the government's policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church in the postwar years. On display are also documents of the past ten years, including photographs of the inauguration ceremony of President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation, in which Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia took part.