The restoration work will begin this year, Mr Zubkov announced after the first meeting of the Board.

The issue of conferring the status of a federal cultural and historical monument on the New Jerusalem Monastery was also discussed. "This will be done and it will provide grounds for the federal budget to allocate funds in accordance with its status of a historical monument," the Mr Zubkov clarified.

The meeting approved the composition of the Board and the Fund's Charter, formed its Directorate, appointed the Managing Director and determined the priorities until the end of 2008.

In accordance with Mr Zubkov's directive, the technical administrator and general contractor of the Fund will be chosen, and the design and cost estimate documentation will be developed and agreed by the end of the year. Engineering and geological exploration, scientific archive and technological design studies will also be launched.

The Managing Director of the Fund will be Viktor Kochenov, formerly assistant to First Deputy Prime Minister Zubkov.

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The Board of Trustees of the Charitable Fund held its first meeting at the Kremlin on October 20. It was attended by President Dmitry Medvedev and Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II. They both asked the First Deputy Prime Minister to become the head of the Fund.

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The decision to build the monastery was taken by Patriarch Nikon in 1656. It was intended to become a new religious centre of the whole Orthodox world, which would replicate the structures in the Holy Land, while the monastery's main cathedral was to be a replica of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Monastery was closed in 1919 and became the New Jerusalem Museum. During the three-week German occupation in 1941 the museum was looted, the tower and the belfry were destroyed and the cathedral sustained heavy damage.

In 1994 the process of the transfer of the monastery to the Russian Orthodox Church began. Restoration and repair work has been going on since that time.