Voluntary Departure of Clergy in the Secular Department in the First Half of the XIX Century: Causes, Results and Procedure of Office Work (on the Materials of the Tobolsk Spiritual Consistory)

Abstract

The relevance of the study is largely due to the fact that at present, as in the period under consideration in the article, many clergy leave their work in the Church, and in the period of revival of the Russian Orthodox Church, this may become a significant problem for it. Its solution implies the need to study the history of this phenomenon. The author, based on the content of legislative acts and the interpretations of modern scholars, considered one of the main problems in the Russian Orthodox Church - voluntary care of the clergy in secular authority, during the XVIII - early XX centuries. On the basis of archival documents, the article reveals the main reasons that encourage young people of the spiritual Department to seek a place of service in secular institutions in the first half of the XIX century, the results of solving such cases by the Tobolsk spiritual Consistory, the terms and stages of office work. The methodological basis of this study was the most important principles of historical science, primarily such as system, historicism, interdisciplinarity and scientific objectivity, which allowed us to consider the studied phenomena in dynamics and interaction.