The working meeting of Mikhail Sharomazov, director of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve, and Bishop of Vologda and Veliky Ustiug Ignaty took place in Vologda on July 22. Sergey Nazarov, chairman of the board of the Non-Profit Regional Foundation “Penitence”, Father Superior Dionisy (Vozdvizhensky), head of the fine art commission in the Vologda eparchy, priest Georgy (Zaretsky), head of the legal department in the Vologda eparchy, also participated in the meeting. The director of the museum reported about this conversation in the interview for the website kirmuseum.ru.
- Mr. Sharomazov, what was the purpose of your visit to the Vologda Diocesan Authorities?
- We mainly discussed two questions at the meeting. One of them concerned preparation for the celebrations of the millennium of the Russian presence on Mount Athos in 2016. A number of events on the occasion of this important date will be also held in the Vologda region, in particular, it is planned to open a pilgrim centre in the Monastery of St. Nil Sorsky in the Kirillov district. Earlier we undertook obligations to solve some organization issues, but the pilgrim centre is not a museum. The eparchy should participate in its establishment. Sergey Nazarov, chairman of the board of the Non-Profit Regional Foundation “Penitence”, attended the meeting. He is working on the arrangement of the centre now. Soon we are to inform Bishop Ignaty about what has been done and is being done to open the centre.
-And what was another issue?
- The second issue was connected with the assignment for use free of charge of the 13 sites of the architectural ensemble to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. These sites are located in the Ivanovsky Monastery and were used by the functional monastery before. Now the matter concerts preparation of a package of documents to hand over these sites to the monastery for the free use. Bishop Ignaty confirmed that the previous agreements reached at the meeting in Kirillov were still valid.
- Nevertheless, the public was disturbed after that meeting. Probably, it was because of the inaccurate interpretation of the information about expansion of services. What can you tell about it?
- It was already reported earlier that the museum and the monastery would conclude a cooperation agreement to improve services. This issue was discussed by Bishop Ignaty and me in the same course. The draft of the agreement will be made soon. It is planned to increase the number of services held in summer in the Assumption Cathedral and the Church of St. Martinian. As for services in the Nativity of the Virgin Cathedral, this is no longer in question. The position of the museum hasn’t changed: it is impossible to conduct long services in the cathedral. Otherwise, we will disturb the conditions that give a chance to preserve the unique frescoes of the 16th century. But it is possible to conduct one-time services that last for not more than 30 minutes there. But not more than 15 people can be in the church at the same time.
Now the museum is facing another problem – improvement of living conditions of the brethren in the functional monastery. It was decided to hand over the Priests’ Cells to the monks for the free use. But people live in this building. The town and the district cannot provide them with new housing. After the consultation with Mayor Andrey Kotov, I informed Bishop Ignaty about the housing prices in Kirillov. It will give a chance to understand how much rehousing of people will cost.
- Mr. Sharomazov, what are your personal impressions of this meeting?
- Bishop Ignaty takes a very careful attitude to everything discussed at the meetings and shows willingness to do his best to establish good business relationships between the museum and the eparchy.
Photo: Pavel Shcherbina
