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This article examines 29 Psalters of the 13th–16th centuries in the context of Old Russian liturgical writing: horologions, liturgical collections, etc., as well as the old-printed Psalter. Prayers for Cathismata 6–10 have been studied and compared. Usually, each Cathisma has one prayer, less often two. The analysis of the set of prayers suggests the existence in ancient Russia of a certain “basic tradition” of the arrangement of prayers, which is most likely of a South Slavic origin. In relation to this tradition, three groups of Psalters can be distinguished. 14 manuscripts have a set of prayers that mostly (or even completely) correspond to this tradition. 7 manuscripts show partial correspondence, mainly it is limited to the prayers after the initial Cathismata, and for the rest Cathismata manifests itself sporadically. The 8 remaining manuscripts do not depend on this tradition, and there may be only some partial correspondences. For 6–10 Cathismata, one can single out “priority” prayers (i. e. those belonging to the “main tradition”). They are presented in 5–13 manuscripts, so their share never reaches half (unlike prayers of 1–5 Cathismata). Many prayers are of Byzantine origin and known from Greek manuscripts. Thus, 4 prayers are taken from the conversations of the Holy Fathers (John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Rev. Antiochus). There are also biblical prayers (the prayer of Manasseh). Other prayers may have a Slavic origin. For example, 4 prayers belong to St. Kirill of Turov, and some more prayers show a distinct resemblance to his language. Most of these prayers become an item of the past, but some of them nowadays are used as cell prayers (Evening prayers 2 and 9, prayers after the 6th and 7th Cathismata, prayer against desecration) or in worship services (prayers of Martyr Mardari and King Manasseh). The text of the 8 prayers, which have not yet been published, is given in this article. Especially interesting are the F.п.I.2 prayers after the 9th Cathismata (which has a didactic character and actively quotes rare books of the Old Testament) and after the 10th Cathismata (a lengthy penitential hymn).

The article is devoted to the formation and final formalization of the ideology of the “Union of Church Revival” in the context of the development of the Renovationist schism in the Russian Orthodox Church in the first half of the 1920s. The work examines the process of formation of the “Union of Church Revival” as an independent church grouping, the circumstances of its separation from the “Living Church” in 1922, as well as the joint actions of the leader of the “Union”, “metropolitan” Antonin (Granovsky) with representatives of other renovationist groups within the framework of collegial Higher Church administration in the context of the preparation and conduct of the Renovationist II Local Council at the end of 1922 — the first months of 1923. The reasons for the final rupture of the “metropolitan” Antonin with the main renovation in the summer of 1923 are indicated. The main attention is paid to the work of the first All-Russian Congress of the “Union of Church Revival” in 1924, the circumstances of its convocation and key resolutions. The composition of the congress is being investigated, as well as the course of its work. The greatest attention is paid to the adopted resolutions on the attitude towards other church groups, on liturgical reforms and on the political position of the “Union of Church Revival”. The article examines the attitude of this church grouping to the results of the Renovationist II Local Council and the revision of a number of its decisions in the context of its own ideological course. It is noted that by the middle of 1924, the Union of Church Revival finally expressed its rejection of the canonical reforms of the II Local Council, primarily related to the married “hierarchy”. The total rejection of this innovation led to the fact that even the Patriarchal Church of this group had a much softer attitude than the lobbying of the “married episcopate” of the “Living Church” and the Renovationist Holy Synod, which preserved this practice. At the same time, the Union of Church Revival defended numerous liturgical reforms. It is concluded that the ideology of this church grouping combined liturgical reformism with canonical conservatism.

Modern problems of the priesthood, its theological foundation, historical origins and position in modern world became in the 20th century the subject of examination for the most famous Catholic theologians. At the same time the fi gure of priest is mostly refl ected in their works through the concept of ‘crisis’. However, the concept of ‘crisis of the priesthood’ was never systematically conceptualized, and its presence in the theological discourse looks like an axiom that needs no evidence. In literature it generally comes to description of the separate crisis phenomena. In most cases the authors note the downsize of priests, priestly identity crisis in modern world, the loss of the meaning of celibacy, the emerging of ‘pastoral’ and secular professions, providing competition to priests, loss of traditional functions of religion in modern society, and consequently the priests are suff ering primarily, as religions representatives. But on closer examination it turns out that these phenomena are not new for the Catholic Church and might have various and even contradictory interpretations. This article analyzes the main symptoms of the crisis described in Catholic literature, and suggests that the crisis of the priesthood is not a given, but some form of understanding the reality. This rhetoric allows to refl ect upon the current situation as a challenge which requires the mobilization of the forces of the church and an adequate theological response that can aff ect social reality.

This article offers support the claim expense seized in 1922 under the slogan of helping the starving of church property in the minting of coins in connection with the monetary reform. It is primarily a silver, whose share in the value of the selected property in the existing temples was 86 percent. Need dragmetalah as the reform of the circulation of money there, regardless of the problem of hunger 1921–1922 and determined refusal of the Bolshevik leaders from the course on monetary economy in the post-war chaos. Evidence for the main thesis of the article served as the internal reports of structural divisions of People’s Commissariat of Finance and the People’s Commissariat of Workers ‘and Peasants’ Inspection, which indicated that in the period of the campaign for the withdrawal and delivery of church property in the state store, recently seen as the main source of silver for coinage on Petrograd Mint. Information about church silver was present in the reports to send to the metal from Gokhran Mint statements and the amount of metal intended for coinage. Demand for silver for the execution of production programs for minting exceed the available reserves of the metal, which resulted in the purchase of silver on foreign markets and buying coins Imperial coinage in the population of the country. Silver in donations and reform played a role supportive factor for strengthening confidence in the paper currency treasury.

Financial and politics aspects of the realization of the church values seized in 1922 under the pretext of rendering assistance to the starving people are analyzed in the article. Author examines relationship between People’s Commissariat for Finance and three organizations of the all-Russian C.E.C. in which possession were the seized values. The conducted study gives grounds to assert that no sales of the church values abroad for purchase of bread for starving people were carried out and the fight against famine and it’s consequences was waged with the funds of the state Treasury. The seizure of the values from the churches in 1922 lasted too long time. The concentration of the values in Moscow took several years. Having “realized” values authorities initially announced preliminary and demonstrative purchase of the food at a very small amount — 1 million of gold rubles. Then the sale of the church values for soviet depreciated rubles made by the Central Committee for Famine Relief of the all-Russian С.E.C. to Narcomfi n according to agreement of 29 July 1922 was likewise presented by the soviet leaders. The article describes the history of the fruitless efforts undertaken by the members of Pomgol CC to obtain the gold credits, and points out more correct official cost of the seized values. As an important conclusion the author asserts that the policy of double standards pursued by the Narkomfin in the assessment of the seized church property let the financial department under the pretext of ‘’famine relief’’ get a signifi cant profi t.

This article continues the publication of archive of Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich), situated in research Department recent history of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Tikhon`s Orthodox University. The article introduces into scientific use Documents, which give a new look on participation of Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich) in the preparation of the Declaration on the separation of the Yaroslavl diocese from Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) from 6 February 1928. This draft of the Declaration prepared by Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich) and Archpriest Pavel Lahostsky formed the basis of the text of the Yaroslavl Declaration, as hase been shown in the introductory article. Letters of Archpriest Paul to the Archbishop Seraphim about writing this draft of Declaration, reveal the positions of both the authors of the project on the situation in the Church, formed as a result of activity of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) in 1927 - the beginning of 1928. Published documents confirm participation of Metropolitan Agafangel (Preobrazhensky) in the preparation of the Yaroslavl Declaration and non-participation of Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh) in the preparation.

The Chronology of the Renovationist «Revolution» in the Russian Church in May, 1922 according to New Archival Documents S.N. Ivanov The article covers the events of the beginning of the Renovationist schism in the Russian Orthodox Church, in particular —the attempt of the clergy’s group which has been loyal to the Soviet authorities to assume the higher power of the Church in May, 1922. The author supplemented the chronology of Renovationist schism with new archival documents which open the circumstances of negotiations between future dissenters and the members of an oversight body on the eve of meetings with Patriarch Tikhon at the Troitsk town residence in Moscow. Results of the research scientifi cally proved the assumption the Bolshevik authorities have used property. Earlier there was only the supposition of the church-historical researchers relying on the detected cost estimate of the withdrawal’s company of a Church property. For organizing the church division the Political bureau of Central Committee RKP (b) relied on the disagreements of clergy concerning the confi scation. The facts found out by the author clarifi ed the understanding of the true motives of loud statements about «the Famine Relief». The story of May events recreated in the article allows drawing more detailed conclusions about the decisions accepting by the Patriarch in the fi eld of the higher church management in this period. Reasonableness, compliance with the decrees of the Higher Church Management and the aspiration to benefi t the Church has distinguished the position of St. Patriarch Tikhon. the Moscow tribunal’s sentence upon 11 persons (including 8 priests) to be shot, for pressure, both on St. Patriarch Tikhon, and on the Revivalists with a view of the control over them. The author proves that the schism’s leaders, agitating voluntary for handing over divine service vessels to the Bolshevik commissions of Famine Relief, have received monetary compensation of state bodies for the “work” on the confi scation of Church

The complete text of Georges Florovsky’s thesis, “Herzen’s Philosophy of History” is considered lost. The main goal of the present study is to discuss the discovery of this work in the archive of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (Crestwood, NY). Using the methods of redaction and source criticism, Paul Gavrilyuk off ers a reconstruction of all parts of the dissertation, based on the newly discovered document and previously published materials. The paper covers the following topics: (1) how Florovsky wrote his dissertation; (2) the defense of the dissertation in Prague; (3) the preparation of the dissertation for publication; (4) the description of the newly discovered material; (5) the reconstruction of the dissertation. Section two contains a hitherto unknown account of Florovsky’s dissertation defense by Alexander S. Izgoev.

The article provides with the general survey on development and forming of the so-called“German Mystics”, which raised in the 14th century and which was linked with MeisterElkhart’s name. In the body of the article the Meister Elkhart’s teaching is expounded: theteaching about Deity (Gottheit), the teaching of the soul and its “sparkle” and his teachingabout mystical experience and knowledge of God also

The Old Russian manuscript tradition demonstrates a rich variety of prayers after the kathisms of the Psalter. The article examines 26 Psalteries of the 13–14 centuries in the context of the Old Russian liturgical literature: horologions, liturgical collections, etc., as well as the old-printed Psalter. Prayers for the five initial cathismata have been studied and compared. Usually each cathisma has one prayer, but in some manuscripts there are cathismata with 2 or even 3 prayers. The analysis shows that among the prayers of the initial cathismata of the Psalter, there is comparatively greater stability comparing with further cathismata. Each of the initial cathismata is associated with the most characteristic prayer, which is found in about half of the manuscripts considered. The rest of the prayers for this cathisma are diverse and can occur in three or, as a rule, in one or two manuscripts. The results of the study are clearly presented in a table. The text of some prayers that have not yet been published is given in this article. These are the “prayer of St. Zinon”, containing a request for protection; the “prayer of King Leon”, with a character of enthusiastic praise; the penitential prayer “Hear, Lady Theotokos”; the penitential prayer “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”; the supplicatory prayer “O, King of Glory”, which has an unusual textual tradition; and the intercession “to the Holy Mother of God for all the Christians”. Many prayers are of Byzantine origin and known from Greek manuscripts; they are attributed to various saints of antiquity: St. Ephraem the Syrian, St. Isaac of Nineveh, St. Antiochus, St. John Chrysostom; two prayers are taken from the “Life of St. Niphont”; and two prayers are biblical. Other prayers may have a Slavic author: for example, four prayers belong to St. Kirill Turovsky. Among these manuscripts, 11 psalters are almost identical in the composition of prayers, another 6 psalters have a fairly similar composition, and the rest are very different from each other. The hypothesis is put forward that in ancient Russia there was a “basic tradition” of arranging prayers after the initial cathismata. Along with it, there were various alternative traditions. Subsequently, the main tradition was transformed in a certain way and used to establish the composition of the old-printed Psalter.

The article analyzes the institutional and legal aspects of the activities of the diocesan guardianship for the poor of the clerical ranks in the Tobolsk diocese in 1823–1914. The prerequisites for creating a pension system for the clergy, as well as the development of legislative acts regulating the ways to support the retired clergy, their widows and orphans in 19th — early 20th century are considered. The author has shown that Russian legislation for a long time practically did not regulate the material care of the retired clergy, their widows and orphans, leaving them to independently provide for themselves by engaging in trade or profession after the retirement or rely on their relatives, which entailed hereditary parish positions and introversion of the estate. The research covers the history of the Tobolsk diocesan patronage for the poor of clerical ranks, which has been performed at the expense of the previously unstudied fund of the patronage from the State Archives in the town of Tobolsk. The author illustrates functional development of activities of the trusteeship, related to the implementation of church charity in the post-reform period: since 1867 — payments to the clergy, victims of fires; since 1887 — functioning of the emeritial fund for lump sum payments to the retired diocesan clergy, as well as the disposal of orphan property; since 1890 — functioning of the funeral fund. The article analyzes replenishment and spending of funds of the trusteeship on the basis of statistical reports of the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod on the Department of Orthodoxy and reports of the trusteeship for the poor of clerical ranks published in Tobolsk Diocesan Gazette. The author has concluded that the attempts of diocesan leaders to solve the problem of providing care for the poor clergy and replenishing the budget of the trusteeship in the Tobolsk diocese were unsuccessful, targeted assistance from the trusteeship, provided to the socially vulnerable clergy, their widows and orphans did not play a crucial role in providing the minimum needs of the clergy, although it could somewhat alleviate their plight. Relevance of the article is determined by the need to assess the place and role of the diocesan patronage of the poor of the Tobolsk diocese in the functioning of the synodal system as an element of church-state relations in the Russian Empire in the 19th century.