World War II – 75 years after the war: Vladimir Putin, Josef Stalin and the Blessed Mother

In the west of Moscow is the Russian Army Amusement Park, a large area where you can see tanks, play paintball or practice dismantling Kalashnikovs. However, the biggest attraction has yet to open: it is the new cathedral of the Russian armed forces, a building dedicated to the resurrection and victory of Christ in 1945.

Its opening, scheduled for this week, had to be postponed due to the corona virus, like the parade in Red Square. The dispute the Church has already sparked is now even bigger after it became known that President Vladimir Putin and Josef Stalin appeared on wall mosaics.

Defense Minister Sergei Shojgu came up with the idea for the building, which together with Putin laid the foundation stone in 2018. The unusual design is partly due to him. The exterior of the church is a gray army green, the vaulted ceilings are glazed and decorated with military orders.

The Soviet star, hammer, and sickle shine alongside the great face of Christ in the main dome. On the cast iron steps, Schojgu melted down the German loot weapons so that people could “step over the weapons of the defeated enemy.”

The church is officially funded by donations, in fact also from state and arms companies. Putin himself donated the icon, an image of Christ. It is the main icon of the Russian armed forces and has been displayed in many military bases at home and abroad for worship.

The mosaics on the wall, as the priest responsible for artistic direction Leonid Kalinin explains, follow a guiding principle: “That God has been present in all of Russia’s victories since Russia began.” You can see the Blessed Mother protecting Moscow from the Germans in 1941, intervening in Stalingrad in 1942, and in the tank battle near Kursk in 1943. The representation leads to military operations in Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam and Syria as far as Today, reveals the mosaic artist Wasilij Nesterenko, “and always in the language of the church, not everything can be represented in the church.”

That’s the point: what can be represented? Two mosaics made for the west wall represent Vladimir Putin and the dictator Josef Stalin, also under the watchful eye of the Virgin. Stalin appears as a political banner that the crowds cheered in celebration of the 1945 victory in front of Saint Basil’s Cathedral. Opposite, Putin celebrates the 2014 Crimean connection to Russia between happy women and masked soldiers. Next to him is Russia’s political elite: Shojgu, the heads of the FSB secret service, the army and the Security Council, but also the Minister Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and the President of the House of Lords. Then you could see it in photos that leaked from his workshop to Nesterenko’s annoyance.

The outrage was great. The mosaic has been removed. Putin allowed his spokesman to express a mild rebuke: “At some point, grateful descendants will recognize our merits, but now it is too early for that.” Politicians are now said to be replaced by monks celebrating the annexation of Crimea.

And, according to Kalinin, Stalin is also eliminated. From a theological point of view, his illustration is the much larger taboo violation. The author of the mosaic Nesterenko says that representing Stalin does not mean worshiping him: “If you represent the sacrament, you can also see Judas.” But of course, Stalin did not climb the mosaic as a traitor, but as the victorious commander-in-chief. And the army command openly adores him. “Why should we be ashamed of him?” Deputy Defense Minister Andrei Kartapolov asked this week in “Komsomolskaya Pravda.” Stalin “went through all the difficulties of the war, was responsible for the most important decisions.”