The Commemoration Chancery: New Evidence about a Little-Known Institution in 17th-Century Muscovy – Панихидный приказ

Abstract

Abstract This article treats one of the least-known administrative institutions in Muscovy in the seventeenth century: the Commemoration Chancery (or Panikhidnyi prikaz). The discovery of previously unknown materials allows us for the first time to consider the timing of, and reasons for, the creation of this chancery. Income and Expenditure Books (Prikhodno-raskhodnye knigi) from the tsar’s Treasury (Kazennyi prikaz) include previously unnoticed references to the Commemoration Chancery, the earliest reference dating to 1616 – a full decade earlier than the previous first mention of the chancery in sources. An analysis of the available records suggests that the Commemoration Chancery during the reign of the first Romanov tsar, Mikhail Fedorovich (1613–1645), was originally an integral part of the Chancery of the Great Court, not a separate entity. This study also suggests that the chancery was set up during the early years of the reign of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich in order to organize religious commemoration services (panikhidy) for previous Russian rulers, with the evident goal of helping to link the Romanovs to the old dynasty and thereby bolster the new dynasty’s legitimacy on the throne.