A religious icon depicting Soviet leader Josef Stalin has sparked controversy in Russia's Saratov region, Region64 news site reported this week.
The icon, which portrays Stalin standing beneath the Virgin Mary and flanked by Soviet field marshals, was presented as a gift to employees of the Engels Air Base by the Izborsk Club — a patriotic Russian group that has previously urged Russian defense reform to mitigate against a possible nuclear strike from the United States.
The icon was presented by Izborsk Club director Alexander Prokhanov during a ceremony Tuesday in which an Orthodox priest recited a prayer before blessing the icon and sprinkling it with water from the Volga River.
The local Orthodox Church archdiocese said the priest who led the service had been wrong to do so, describing the icon as a "brazen provocation" and based on a "perversion of religious and patriotic sentiments," the Ridus.ru news website reported. "It does not constitute an icon in the proper sense of the word," Church authorities were quoted as saying.