Byzantine Orthodox icons, which were taken from the Ukrainian capital Kiev to France and which are currently not fully displayed in the Louvre, have been exported in complete confidentiality, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing a representative of the museum. This was reported by The Wall Street Journal newspaper with reference to a museum representative.
“Nobody, except for a narrow circle, knew that we had done this,” said Maximilien Durand, director of the Louvre’s department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian art, as quoted by The Wall Street Journal.
According to the newspaper, 16 unique icons from the lineup of the National Museum of Art named after Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko were taken from Kiev to France via Germany and Poland in May 2023 under the protection of an armed convoy in special-purpose containers in which the mandatory air circulation was maintained.
The Wall StreetJournal highlighted that five objects from the collection of church relics were on display at the Louvre’s vernissage “At the origins of the sacred image” (“Aux origines de l’image sacrée”), which runs at the French museum until 29 January. The other 11 icons are located in the museum storage.
We will remind, in Ukraine continues a campaign to discriminate against supporters of canonical Orthodoxy. Earlier, a Ukrainian court sentenced a cleric of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to 15 years in prison for allegedly collaborating with the Russian side.