Images of churches without crosses to be banned in Russia

The Church of the Prophet Elijah in Suzdal, Russia. Photo: Parliamentary Newspaper

On May 25, 2025, deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation prepared a draft law aimed at protecting religious symbols of the main traditional faiths, namely – on the mandatory use of these symbols as an integral part of images of cult buildings. This was reported on his Telegram channel by the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. 

Volodin reported numerous complaints from citizens that religious symbols on posters, advertisements, products, in the press, and on websites are intentionally removed or altered, distorting their meaning. According to him, such actions provoke public outrage.

It is noted that Abbess Ksenia Cherniga, head of the Legal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, called in April for a legislative ban on images of churches and other religious objects without symbols of faith. On May 21, at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, she stated that the corresponding draft law would be submitted in the near future.

Abbess Ksenia said: “The question arises about the permissibility of depicting the domes of Orthodox churches on posters, announcements, advertisements, on banknotes or, say, on the logos of subjects of the Russian Federation without crosses. In our opinion, this is unacceptable.”

On the same day, the image of the Kremlin emblem – a variant of the state coat of arms – was updated on the Telegram channel and the website of the Presidential Administration. Previously, instead of Orthodox crosses, there were diamonds. In the new version, the crosses were restored.

Putin's press secretary Peskov called the disappearance of the crosses from the Kremlin emblem a matter of scaling: if the coat of arms is reduced, at some point the crosses turn into little diamonds, he stated.

Earlier, the Union of Orthodox Journalists reported that in the Russian Federation, a new banknote depicted a church without a cross and a minaret with a crescent moon.

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