The fate of the house churches of Petrograd in 1918-1922 (based on documents from TSGALI SPb archive)

After the publication on January 20 (February 2), 1918, of the Council of People’s Commissars decree “On freedom of conscience, church and religious societies,” the question of the further fate of church property arose for the first time in the country. Legally, the decree applied only to parish churches, but at that time there were more than 500 churches in Petrograd, slightly less than half of which belonged to private houses. In August 1918, an expanded instruction to the decree was issued, which extended its effect to house churches, stipulating in a separate paragraph that “churches and houses of worship of historical, artistic and archaeological significance are transferred in compliance with a special instruction developed by the Museum Department of the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment”. These documents led to the formation of a complex of archival materials about the examination and removal of the confiscation of valuables from many house churches in Petrograd, which are not considered in Russian historiography. The materials are stored in the Central State Archive of Literature and Arts of St. Petersburg (TSGALI SPb). These are collections no. 36 - “The State Museum Fund of the Leningrad Branch of the Main Science of the People’s Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR”, and no. 29 “The Department of Property of the People’s Commissar of Education in Petrograd”. The study of these unpublished archival documents (in particular, inventories of church property from the churches of mansions and palaces of the city) allows researchers to represent how and by whom the property of house churches was studied and selected for its further transfer to museum collection.