A Russian law on returning religious property seized by the Bolsheviks has been amended, banning the transfer of property from museum collections, parts of the Russian Museum, Archive and National Library funds, a Russian respected daily said on Monday. The prospect of returning religious property to religious organizations has raised alarm among art historians and museum administrators, who said none of the churches in Russia were able to provide the proper storage of icons or frescoes. Kommersant said in the final version of the bill, parliamentarians made concessions to museum workers, who fear the transfer of property to religious organizations may lead to the loss of cultural artifacts. The new bill bans the transfer of property for religious purposes relating to museum objects and collections, which are part of the Russian Museum Fund as well as documents of the Russian Archive Fund and the National Library Fund. The paper added the law is expected to be submitted to the Russian government this week. Almost two decades after the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union, the Orthodox Church has through government decrees regained ownership of just 100 or so of 16,000 churches and cathedrals. In the beginning of this year at a meeting with Russian Patriarch Kirill, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for progress in the long-stalled process to legitimize the property used by religious groups, including buildings and land plots. The governmental commission on religious objects led by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov approved the bill last week. He ordered Russian Deputy Economic Minister Igor Manylov to submit the law to the government within a week. "The law aims to resolve the issue of transferring religious sites to the appropriate hands," Manylov said. He also said that the state decided to get rid of non-core assets. "Russia, joining the Council of Europe, has promised to return religious property to religious organizations," the governmental commission former executive secretary, Andrei Sebentsov, said adding that those from whom property was seized, were long gone. "So we decided to transfer it to contemporary religious organizations. This is restitution, not legal [restitution], but moral." The law stated earlier that the Orthodox Church could not get back churches currently on the UNESCO World Heritage List. However, the new amendments to the law give the Church the right to return churches and cathedrals, including, for example, St. Basil`s Cathedral on Red Square that brings some 30 million rubles ($963,000) to the Russian State Historical Museum annually. "If the museum loses that income, it will have to cut wages to museum employees and raise ticket prices," director of the State Historical Museum Alexander Shkurko said. Under the law, the Russian religious organizations become the rightful owners of the returned property; however, the organizations may exploit it only in accordance with the purposes defined by its charter. This chases away fears that the Church might use the property for commercial purposes, such as selling or renting it. Muslim and Jewish groups have welcomed the proposals, and the Roman Catholic Church in Russia has also expressed hope that it will get back Catholic churches and cathedrals built before 1917.