Protesters Demand Restoration of Mephistopheles Sculpture in St. Petersburg

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A police investigator looks up to at an empty spot where an old bas-relief depicting the mythical demon Mephistopheles was removed in St. Petersburg, Russia.Credit Irina Motina/Associated Press

MOSCOW — Hundreds of St. Petersburg residents and cultural preservationists gathered on Sunday to protest the destruction of a bas-relief sculpture of Mephistopheles that was removed from a historic 1910 apartment building last week and demand that it be restored.

Feodor Chaliapin, the legendary Russian opera singer known for his mesmerizingly demonic portrayal of Mephistopheles in Gounod’s “Faust,” was the inspiration for the bas-relief, the great-grandson of Alexander Lishnevsky, architect of the Art Nouveau apartment building, and art historians have said.

The sculpture is offensive to Russian Orthodox believers according to a letter sent to Russian media by a Cossack who initially took credit for the removal. Another Cossack leader denounced him as a quasi-Cossack and said he would take revenge for the sculpture’s destruction.

A church dedicated to St. Xenia of Petersburg, one of the city’s most famous saints, is under construction across the street from the building. The St. Petersburg diocese denied any connection to destruction of the sculpture, but the Rev. Roman Bogdasarov, Moscow Patriarchate official, told the Izvestia newspaper that the motive of the person who destroyed it is understandable since “images of a demon are repulsive.”

Another priest condemned the destruction of the sculpture, saying that demons were often depicted to remind people of evil.

Prosecutors have opened a criminal case. Fragments of the bas-relief were found in construction garbage.

Liberal intelligentsia, including members of the Russian church, have warned that homegrown fundamentalists are behaving toward culture like the Islamic State. Earlier in August, a group called “God’s Will” vandalized an exhibition at Moscow’s Manezh exhibition hall near the Kremlin. Dmitry Tsorionov, the group’s leader, who led the attack Tweeted for supporters to join him. He and activists denounced and attempted to destroy works by Vadim Sidur, a Soviet artist who addressed religious themes, as blasphemous and pornographic, for, among other things, depicting Jesus naked. Last week, the exhibition was vandalized again.

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department on church and society relations, visited the Manezh exhibition after the first attack and said some of the works were offensive.

Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum, warned after the first Manezh attack that “our society is sick” and proposed self-defense courses for museums since government-funded police guards are scheduled to be removed as of November due to budget cuts.