The first Museum of Christianity in Russia will be created in Chersonesos

On April 10, a working meeting between the Chairman of the Patriarchal Council for Culture, Metropolitan Tikhon of Simferopol and Crimea, the First Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Sergei Obryvalin and the Governor of the city of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhaev was held at the Museum-Reserve «Chersonese Tauride». The meeting was attended by researchers and archaeologists from leading federal museums who arrived from Moscow as part of a delegation from the Russian Ministry of Culture.

The main topic of the meeting was the completion of the construction of the historical and archaeological park “Tavricheski Chersonese”, initiated by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, and the creation of an exposition of the first Museum of Christianity in Russia. Modern multimedia technologies will be combined with museum exhibits, thanks to which visitors will be able to learn about the history of Chersonesus and the entire country from the era of the reign of Prince Vladimir and the Baptism of Rus’ to the present day,” noted the press service of the museum-reserve.

The meeting participants also discussed the possibility of filling the exhibition halls of the future museum with copies of artifacts from state museums and private collections. The collections of the Moscow Kremlin Museums, the State Historical Museum, the Chersonese Tauride Museum-Reserve and the Andrei Rublev Museum contain monuments that tell the story of the birth of Christianity. Materials created on their basis will become the basis of the future exhibition.

As Metropolitan Tikhon said, one of the key spaces of the Museum of Christianity will be a hall telling about evangelical events. The department will consider the issue of providing digital copies of paintings from the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum, written on this topic.

Director of the My History Foundation Ivan Yesin gave a tour for members of the delegation and spoke about the facilities being built and the stages of construction. Thus, the Museum of Antiquity and Byzantium is being created in the park. The building, with an area of ​​over 24 thousand square meters, will become the new home for the exhibitions of the Tauride Chersonese Museum-Reserve.

According to the head of the institution, Elena Morozova, the exhibition will be presented in ten halls, and spaces for temporary exhibitions will appear. The new building will tell about the ancient, Byzantine and late Christian history of the ancient city. The new building will also have a gold storage room, where the museum-reserve will be able to exhibit jewelry that was previously transferred to other cultural institutions.

The historical and archaeological park will become a large-scale cultural, tourist and scientific center of Sevastopol and all of Russia. In addition to the Museum of Christianity and the Museum of Antiquity and Byzantium, it will also include the Museum of Crimea and New Russia, two youth centers, a reconstruction quarter housing the “City of Masters,” an archaeological and tourist center and an amphitheater. The School of Arts and the branch of Artek, the Korsun Center, are already operating on the territory of the cluster, around which there is a garden.

source: Public Relations Department of the State Museum-Reserve «Chersonese Tauride»