Paris, July 13, 2023
Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, 6th–7th-century icon from Mt. Sinai. Photo: louvre.fr
More than a dozen Byzantine icons were removed from a Kiev museum in May.
Traveling in a special military convoy via Poland and Germany, the icons arrived at the world-famous Louvre Museum in Paris, and now five of the sixteen icons are on display.
Theotokos and Christ Child, 6th century, Mt. Sinai. Photo: louvre.fr
The new exhibition, “The Origins of the Sacred Image,” opened on June 14 and will run through November 6, the museum announced.
The collection includes 6th and 7th-century icons from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai and one micromosaic from Constantinople from the late 13th or early 14th century.
St. John the Baptist, 6th century, Mt. Sinai. Photo: louvre.fr
The museum notes that the removal plans were in the works since December 2022. The icons are part of the vast collection of the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts in Kiev. At the beginning of the war in February 2022, the museum’s collections were hidden and the building currently stands empty.
Sts. Plato and Glyceria, 6th–7th century, Mt. Sinai. Photo: louvre.fr
The Mt. Sinai icons were originally obtained by Archimandrite Porphyry (Uspensky), the rector of St. Michael’s Cathedral, during a pilgrimage to Mt. Sinai. In 1885, he left them to the Kiev Theological Academy. When the godless Soviets came to power, they seized the icons and placed them in the Anti-Religious Museum. In 1941, they were transferred to the Khanenko Museum.
St. Nicholas, late 13th–early 14th century, Constantinople. Photo: louvre.fr
Shortly after the exhibition opened in Paris, news spread in the Russian media that the Ukrainian government was collaborating with UNESCO to remove the relics and other sacred items from the Kiev Caves Lavra, to be sent to museums in various Western countries. Both UNESCO and Ukrainian Minister of Culture Alexander Tkachenko have denied any such plans, though at the same time, Tkachenko is an open enemy of the Kiev Caves Lavra and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
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