Activities of the Odessa branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (1896-1916): the statistics essay

Abstract

In the article, based on the annual reports' data, for the first time an attempt to compile the statistics on the activities of the Odessa branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society (IOPS) was made. The studied structural division of the IOPS was opened on December 19, 1893 and became the second after the Yakut branch of the IOPS (March 21, 1893). Using diagrams, the author of the scientific research clearly showed the dynamics of changes in the quantitative composition of the Odessa branch of the IOPS and the ratio by category of membership in the period from 1896 to 1916, analyzed the financial and economic activities of the branch. The article concludes that the growth in the number of members of the Odessa branch before 1905 was associated with the administrative support and public popularity of representatives of the first generation of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society. The reduction in the number of members was subsequently facilitated by the banal non-payment of membership fees for three or more years, as well as the death of IOPS members, under which its active formation took place. The maximum economic viability of the Odessa branch of the IOPS was achieved by 1901, after which the organization's revenues began to fall. Grain harvests in the grain-growing regions of the Russian Empire, as well as domestic and foreign policy factors (the Russo-Japanese War, the First Russian Revolution, the Balkan Wars, the First World War, the Great Russian Revolution of 1917) contributed to the hard crisis in the Odessa branch. The article is intended for specialists in the field of church history, missiology, the history of public organizations, as well as for a wide range of researchers interested in the issues of Russia's presence in the Holy Land.