Priest Grigory Mikhailov as a typical representative of the St. Petersburg parish clergy of the first half of the XVIII century

The article is devoted to one of the first representatives of the St. Petersburg clergy, Priest Grigory Mikhailov (c. 1692–1746), whose fate is typical for the St. Petersburg cleric of the first half of the XVIII century. Using his example, we can trace the mechanism of the appearance of the clergy in the new capital, the ways of their relations with the clergy before and after the establishment of the synodal system, and note the peculiarities of the church service in St. Petersburg in this era. During the years of his metropolitan ministry, Father Gregory changed three parishes — the city proper, at the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos on St. Petersburg Island, and two suburban ones — the Elijah Church on Porokhovye and the Nativity of John the Baptist in Yamskaya Sloboda. The name of the priest Gregory is associated with the early history of the venerated list of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, later one of the main shrines of St. Petersburg. In 1727, during the burial of the Empress Catherine I, Father Gregory participated in the reading of the Gospel over the coffin. At the last place of service, he became famous as a «zealot of piety and purity of morals», which was a rare characteristic for a St. Petersburg priest of that era.