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They said it was "converted by adding traditional features", including an iconostasis, a brightly coloured, highly ornate screen of icons, and "was designated as the 'mother church' - or Sobor - when it was consecrated".

Oleg Kassin, the leader of Narodny Sobor, repeatedly petitioned for Mr. Samodurov’s and Mr. Yerofeyev’s prosecution over the 2007 exhibition at the Sakharov Museum, called “Forbidden Art,” which showed works that had been banned from Russia’s museums in 2006 on religious and nationalist pretexts.

Mr. Yerofeyev opened a news conference on Thursday by showing a video against contemporary art produced by Narodny Sobor, or People’s Council, a nationalist organization that he said was the driving force in the charges against him and Mr. Samodurov.

The Narodny Sobor video shown by Mr. Yerofeyev juxtaposed images of traditional, realist art and Slavic faces with contemporary art and pointedly non-Russian faces.

He said that a driving force behind their trial was the religious ultra-nationalist movement Narodny Sobor, or the People's Assembly, led by Oleg Kassin.