Issues of reforming secondary spiritual education based on the materials of the Pre-Council presence of 1906

This research gives a summary and analytical review of the V department Pre-Council Presence of 1906 meetings protocols content, devoted to the reform of the secondary spiritual education system in Russia. Attention is focused on theological seminaries. By the beginning of the 20th century, the key problems in the system of secondary spiritual education, which required constructive changes, were reduced to the following: the predominance of caste, the low level of education of future Church pastors, the devaluation of spiritual values and the grace of holy orders due to frequent cases of entering this path under duress. During the discussions at the meetings of the Pre-Council Presence, measures were proposed to overcome these and other shortcomings of seminar education, which could become constructive if they were implemented. The main thing was that it was proposed to further separate the general education and professional levels, unifying the content of the first in order to allow the clergy to continue studying in the future according to the programs of secular educational institutions. The results are relevant at the present time, because theological seminaries are the most widely represented type of religious educational institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church and the reform processes in them are regular. The prerevolutionary experience in this regard can serve as an analog basis for making some decisions, and its analysis expands the subject field of church historical science.