Icons

Russian expatriates in Manhattan last week used Religion to plague Art for the sake of Politics. The excuse was an exhibition of Russian Orthodox icons loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by the Soviet Government through the American Russian Institute. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts had previously shown the icons, and European cities had shown them before Boston, with nothing more than perfunctory heckling by expatriate Russians. But Manhattan serves as a loudspeaker to the world.

The Archdiocese Council of the Russian Church protested: "A gross outrage of religious feelings of tens of thousands of American citizens who are faithful sons of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America."

The National League of Americans of Russian Origin, Inc., demanded of the Metropolitan Museum: "Do you realize with whom you are trafficking when borrowing the Russian icons from what some people choose to call the Soviet Government? Can you fully grasp the measure of indignation which policies of this sort arouse in the minds of right-thinking Russians? . . . Abandon the exhibition of stolen objects."

Making much ado about the irreverence of the icon display, despite the fact that the Museum has long shown venerable objects of Roman Catholic, Buddhist and other religions, some Museum members resigned.

Nonetheless the Museum opened the icon exhibit to the public, explaining that these icons had long stood in Russian art museums, were not stolen, represented a form of art little known in the U. S.

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