Collections Of The Roman Catholic And Uniate Spiritual Institutions In The Russian State Historical Archive

Abstract

As early as 1999, archivists of the Russian State Historical Archive (RSHA SPb) published a review of the documents on the history of the Roman Catholic Church now kept in various collections of the RSHA SPb. This chapter deals with the RSHA SPb collections of those spiritual institutions that directly managed the affairs of the Roman Catholic and Uniate churches on the territory of the Russian Empire. The story of state establishments, including the Department for Spiritual Affairs of Foreign Confessions, will be left out, the more since the Roman Catholic sections of this collection have been described in detail in the multi-volume review, published by M.S. Radvan and A.R. Sokolov. The chapter discusses the documents that previously belonged to Roman Catholic and Uniate metropolitans living in Russia, and the corresponding ecclesiastical boards, which, together with the metropolitans, handled the confessional affairs. Keywords: foreign confessions; Roman catholic church; RSHA SPb; Russian empire; spiritual affairs; spiritual institutions; Uniate churches