Exhibition "The Tsar and the Patriarch"

About exhibition

A new project of the Museums of the Moscow Kremlin is opening at the museum — the exhibition "The Tsar and the Patriarch." The display tells the story of the relationship between church and secular power in one of the most interesting periods of Russian history — from the Time of Troubles to the beginning of Peter the Great’s reforms. Residents of Chelyabinsk will be able to see authentic relics of the 16th–18th centuries that belonged to Russian tsars and patriarchs. Personal items, vestments and symbols of authority, as well as icons and liturgical garments of the 16th–17th centuries, will come to the Southern Urals for the first time, leaving the confines of the capital’s treasuries. Among the earliest and most significant relics presented at the exhibition are the mitre of the first Russian patriarch Job and his omophorion (a liturgical episcopal vestment in the form of a wide band draped over the shoulders), decorated with pearls and precious stones. The exhibition will also show the staff and klobuk (a monastic headpiece) of Patriarch Filaret, the pectoral cross of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich — the progenitor of the Romanov dynasty and son of Patriarch Filaret; the "Lazarevsky" sakkos of Patriarch Nikon from 1653; the mantle and seal of Patriarch Adrian; and the watch of Tsar Peter I. The exhibition aims to demonstrate how the art of late medieval Russia evolved depending on who commissioned it.