On July 10, 2024, at the end of the funeral service at the Igumen's cemetery of the Valaam Stavropegial Monastery, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia visited the Museum of Modern Icons, located in the Winter Hotel of the monastery.
The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church was accompanied by Metropolitan Varsonofiy of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan of the Resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church.html">Metropolitan Grigory of Voskresensk, Vicar of the Valaam Monastery Bishop Pankratyi of Troitsk and Personal Secretary of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill Bishop Alexis of Ramensk.
Bishop Alexis of Ramensk.
Bishop Pankratyi familiarized His Holiness with the museum's exposition.
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The revival of the Valaam Monastery, which began in 1989, was connected with the involvement of icon painters from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Pskov and other cities. The monastery established its own icon-painting workshop in St. Vladimir's Skete.
Gradually came the realization that the best modern icons should be preserved for the descendants. The first step towards the creation of the museum was the exhibition organized by the Valaam Monastery in 2015 «Contemporary Icon Painters of Russia», which was held in the exhibition hall «Tsar's Tower» in Moscow. The untimely death of one of Russia's leading icon painters, Alexander Sokolov (1960-2015), became the starting point for the preparation of the exhibition and for thinking about the idea of creating a Museum of Icons. «I first thought about the fact that modern icons should be studied, collected, stored and used to train future iconographers» — said the bishop. Thus was born the idea of the exhibition, most of the exhibits of which became the basis for the exposition of the Museum of Modern Russian Icons on Valaam.
In the museum you can see the works of the leading modern icon painters and the icons of Valaam icon painters of the XIX century. The exposition includes three large sections: the first introduces different traditions and trends in modern icon painting, the second is devoted exclusively to icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the third section is devoted to icons painted on Valaam in the 19th century.
The Valaam Museum of Modern Icons presents the works of famous masters (Archimandrite Zinon (Theodore), Alexander Sokolov, Natalia and Nataliya Sokolov). Nikolay Bogdanov, Irina Zaron), who laid the foundations of the modern tradition and contributed to its creative development. Today there is no single approved style or direction, each of the masters represented in the exposition works in his own manner. But they are united by loyalty to the ancient canons, knowledge and respect for the great heritage of artists of the past, deep understanding of the relationship between visual form and the theology of the image.
The new museum has about 100 icons: 60 icons by modern iconographers and 30 icons created by the brethren of the Valaam Monastery. Today in the church artistic world there are many bright young icon painters who have come already at the beginning of the new millennium. Learning from their older colleagues, they are developing tradition without being afraid to seek and experiment. Perhaps not all their experiments will be accepted by the Church, but their creative endeavors are certainly interesting and worthy of attention.
The exposition of the Valaam Museum testifies that in our time, as in previous centuries, Russia has talented masters who glorify God with their art, and today we can talk about the peculiarities of Russian icon painting of the late XX — early XXI century as we talk about the periods of icon painting of previous centuries. Press-service Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
