MOSCOW — A fresco of Christ on the Kremlin Wall in Moscow plastered over after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution has been rediscovered and presented in a ceremony attended by Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
“The history of these icons is a symbol of what happened with our people in the 20th century,” said Kirill at the ceremony held Aug. 28.
“It was claimed that true goals and values and genuine shrines were destroyed, and that faith had disappeared from the lives of our people.”
The fresco of Christ is located over the Spasskaya, or Saviour, tower of the Kremlin, near St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square. Experts say it dates to the middle or second half of the 17th century.
Another icon, that of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, on the nearby Nikolskaya tower at the opposite end of Red Square, is also being restored.
Both icons were covered up by restorers who sought to save them from the Bolsheviks, who wanted to destroy them during their revolution against tsarist rule.
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