Mitropolitan Korniliy donated to the State Historical Museum a book from his own collection. It is a Psalter published by Moscow Print Yard in 1640.
The event was opened by the director of the State Historical Museum Alexey Konstantinovich Levykin. Alexey Konstantinovich stressed that the book “Psalter” is valuable as a monument of Russian book printing, but this copy is especially valuable – it comes from the Gusli, the land of craftsmen-scribes, the small homeland of Metropolitan Korniliy.
“There was a period in the history of the museum when we experienced a serious shortage of exhibits. Organizations and individuals have played a huge role in the expansion of the museum fund, gratuitously giving us these priceless monuments of the past.”
Levykin expressed gratitude to the Metropolitan for donating the Psalter to the museum. Metropolitan Korniliy, in his welcoming speech, noted that the exhibition hall No. 14, where the ceremony took place, “is decorated in the Old Believer spirit, which is given to it by ancient Russian icons painted in the tradition of the Holy Father. Andrey Rublev”. (The 14th hall of the to the State Historical Museum is dedicated to the Russian culture of the XIV – early XVI centuries. It was in the XV century that Russian icon painting flourished under the influence of the work of this great icon painter.)
“I am sure that my house and my bookcase,” metropolitan said, “are not at all the place where this Psalter should be. And today this book has found its deeply symbolic final address: Moscow, Red Square, 1, the very heart of Russia. Probably, the Old Believers have a special mission from God – to preserve the antiquity, and let a part of this antiquity, a piece of Old Believers be in this place. Guslitsky, Orekhovo-Zuevsky places are the East of the Moscow region, this region was replete with swamps and dense forests, where the Old Believers at one time saved the shrines dear to their hearts. And probably the time has come when one of these saved shrines will be in the State Historical Museum.”
Also Mitropolitan Korniliy presented copies of the recently renewed edition of the magazine “Church“, and the director of the museum, in turn, a book-photo album entitled “Not subject to Oblivion”, which contains photographs of disappearing architectural monuments of the past of our country.
Doctor of Philology, Chief researcher of the Department of Manuscripts and Old Printed Books of the State Historical Museum, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Elena Mikhailovna Yukhimenko in her speech called the Psalter “a symbolic monument in which pre-schismatic Russia and modern Old Believers are connected.”
At the end of the event, Metropolitan Korniliy spoke with media representatives and employees of the State Historical Museum.
