The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has begun the process of transferring the silver tomb of St. Alexander Nevsky (1221-1263) to the Church.
“Today, the outer silver sarcophagus and the inner wooden reliquary are being transferred,” to the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra, where the saint’s today lie in repose, the museum’s press service told TASS.
The rest of the complex, including a five-tiered pyramid, two candlesticks, and two compositions of weapons and banners will be transferred after they are restored.
According to an agreement between the diocese and the Ministry of Culture, the museum is transferring the silver sarcophagus to the Lavra for a period of 49 years. The tomb will be placed on the second floor of the Lavra’s Annunciation Church, where it stood before it was moved to the museum, and which itself was recently returned to the Church.
The silver tomb for the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky was made by the decree of Empress Elizabeth and was initially located in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra. About 1.6 tons of silver were used to make it.
During the Soviet campaign for the seizure of Church valuables, the tomb was opened and the relics of St. Alexander were transferred to the Museum of Religion and Atheism (the relics themselves were returned to the Church in 1989). The authorities intended to send the tomb to be melted down, but the Hermitage and the Russian Museum interceded, explaining that the sarcophagus is a masterpiece, the first work of silver in Russia.
To save the relic, the Hermitage had to give the state part of its collection of silver doublets. The sarcophagus was then kept in the Winter Palace for 100 years.
