The Holy Synod and Establishing the Department of Spiritual Affairs of the Orthodox Confession

The article is devoted to the problem of forming the Department of Spiritual Affairs of the Orthodox Confession as a separate branch of public administration. The emergence of the department should be associated with the ministerial reform of the first quarter of the 19th century, when the first government structure for the affairs of the Orthodox Church appeared — the department of religious affairs of the Greek-Russian confession. Having emerged in 1817 as an integral part of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, this institution survived after the abolition of the ministry and came under the jurisdiction of the Ober-Procurator of the Synod. But the minister of spiritual affairs, like the Ober-Procurator later on, did not have the powers of the head of the department in relation to the Synod. Church administration was the prerogative of the Holy Governing Synod, which headed the Department of Spiritual Affairs of the Orthodox Confession.