Crusade continues: why the law on the protection of religious symbols, passed in 2025, does not work

Perhaps it all started in October 2023 with the Bank of Russia, or rather with its new banknotes. On the new banknote of one thousand rubles was depicted the Palace Church of the XVII century in the Kazan Kremlin without a cross. Then the authors justified that now the museum of the history of the statehood of the Tatar people and the Republic of Tatarstan is located in this building, and it is not used as a temple, so the cross was removed in Soviet times. The Central Bank promised to finalize the design of the bill and, a year later, presented 25 options for other objects.

Russians began to pay attention to the images of temples on a variety of information and advertising materials in various fields. And it turned out that “cross-hairless” is a mass phenomenon. And not only crosses are removed from the pictures, but also distort the symbols of the Russian state power.

On July 15, 2025, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law on amendments to the Federal Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” to protect religious symbols of traditional religions from distortion, retouching and commercialization. The ban applies to publications in the media and the Internet, to advertisements, advertising and signs; it applies to the sale of goods, the performance of works or the provision of services, as well as to state, municipal symbols and signs, emblems.

The authors of the bill then noted that in Russia, facts of retouching, rubbing religious symbols, for example, crosses from the domes of Christian churches are often recorded on photographs, street posters, packaging of goods, elements of decoration of exhibition halls, on banknotes, in the press. This is an outrage not only for believers, but also for all cultural people. Such practice, especially with mass repetition, can create a false feeling that religious symbols are an inappropriate or undesirable element of public space, said Sergei Gavrilov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Property, Land and Property Relations.

It would seem that business and, especially, government agencies are obliged to comply with the laws. But the crusade continued after the adoption of these amendments.

For example, in May 2026 in the subway of Novosibirsk, Dmitri Polushin discovered the composition of the train, in the design of which the silhouettes of the city’s attractions were used. Among them are easily recognizable Chapel in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on Red Avenue and the Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky. But there were no crosses on them.

And at the end of August 2026, the administration of Perm gained notoriety in this sense: at the art object for the 300th anniversary of the city, its authors also “missed” the crosses. The human rights religious center-movement, which regularly posts about such violations, then sent a pre-trial claim to the city administration with a demand to eliminate the violation.

And now, the Russian bank has also shown contempt for the law and the feelings of believers. How much that ad hangs near the metro "South-West", is unknown. The Human Rights Center “Forty Forty Forty” again signaled this in its channel, noting that “for some reason banks are especially often disliked, if I may say so, for the Cross,” and giving examples of this.

“Crosses must be on the domes — in any picture, whatever it may be. Any art object. Even if it was created a long time ago, there are new requirements for the depiction of churches under the new law on the protection of religious symbols when using their images in the public sphere, and everything should be brought in accordance with them, said Ivan Solovyov, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, public figure.

I must say that for “erasing” or ignoring crosses on the images of churches and churches, we have fines – the State Duma approved them in April 2026. Corresponding amendments were made to the Code of Administrative Offences. (For citizens – from 5,000 to 30,000 rubles. or mandatory work up to 120 hours, for officials – from 50,000 to 100,000 rubles.) For legal entities – from 100 000 to 300 000 rubles.). The statute of limitations for prosecution for these offences has been increased from 90 days to one year from the date of the violation.

But the expert is convinced that we do not yet have proper responsibility for such violations. “I don’t understand why some organizations continue to do this,” he says. Therefore, in my opinion, it would be good to prepare a corresponding bill on establishing responsibility for such acts, in which it is necessary to prescribe motives, if the motive is selfish, if it is aimed at inciting ethnic hatred, at insulting the feelings of believers, then the responsibility should be more serious. Because it is not the same thing if a person “missed the cross” because of his illiteracy or inattention – although this should not be an excuse either.

According to him, this topic has long been necessary to put an end: if you depict a temple, building, historical place, and it has religious symbols, then they should exactly fall on such an image. And it is not allowed to tarnish, remove, paint, refer to the “wrong pixels” and so on. “The whole world must resist this. The best way out, if you notice such a fact in your city, is to draw up a collective statement of caring residents to the police and prosecutor's office to force the authorities to comply with federal legislation. If this does not give a result, you can apply to regional authorities, and if there is no reaction – to Moscow.