MOSCOW — The director of the Sakharov Museum was convicted Monday of inciting religious hatred with a controversial art exhibition that was deemed "blasphemous and profane" by the Russian Orthodox Church.
A federal district court fined museum director Yuri Samodurov and curator Lyudmila Vasilovskaya $3,600 each for organizing the 2003 exhibit, which featured dozens of artists' expressions on the subject of religion. The show, "Caution: Religion," was closed down quickly after being attacked by vandals.
Among the works that aroused the fury of religious conservatives was an icon into which visitors could insert their own faces, and a figure of Christ superimposed on a Coca-Cola logo with the words "This is my blood."
"This is a frightening and dangerous precedent ... a very dangerous precedent for culture and civil society, because the court found contemporary art criminally liable," Samodurov said after the ruling.
"Our work is ahead of us [on appeal], because we must secure a full acquittal. Otherwise, culture in our country will be forever locked inside a frame of religion, and all painters, museum and art gallery experts will approach their work with fear," he said.
The verdict comes at a time of rising influence of the Orthodox Church, which is seen by many Russians as an institution of national identity -- though President Vladimir V. Putin, himself an active practitioner, has emphasized freedom for all religions. About 71% of Russians consider themselves Orthodox believers.
Archpriest Vladimir Pereslegin, a cleric with the Moscow patriarchy who led a group of hymn-singing protesters outside the courthouse, pronounced satisfaction with the verdict but not the relatively lenient sentence.
"Not only in the eyes of God, but also in the eyes of society and the eyes of the legitimate judicial authorities, Samodurov and his accomplices have been pronounced criminal offenders in full view of the criminal code of this country," Pereslegin said.
"But the lenience of the sentence handed down makes all nonpartisan people to feel perplexed and indignant," the priest said. "It was a crime against society, and it was not just some art objects which were desecrated, but real sacred objects."
The Orthodox Church, in an official statement, described the verdict as fair.
