A solução dos problemas enfrentados pela sociedade russa moderna depende em grande parte das crenças, expectativas, valores e atitudes das pessoas que determinam sua atitude em relação à inovação, conteúdo, eficácia e eficiência de várias atividades. A adaptação social (inclusão ativa no ambiente social) do indivíduo assume como condição necessária a conquista de um certo nível de competência social. O ambiente social moderno tem um impacto significativo no processo de formação da personalidade, causando certas contradições: por um lado, a modernização sociocultural requer uma nova abordagem para o problema da auto- realização social do indivíduo, exigindo maior atividade humana como sujeito da vida social, assumindo a responsabilidade por suas atividades e comportamentos, mas, por outro lado, a instabilidade da sociedade moderna aumenta as dificuldades naturais de crescer; a situação de incerteza leva à deformação do desenvolvimento pessoal, à desadaptação na sociedade. A modernização do sistema educacional levou a mudanças no conteúdo, formas, métodos e tecnologias da educação, em relação às quais havia a necessidade de avaliar os resultados do funcionamento do sistema educacional. Analisando a qualidade de um treinamento especializado moderno, os pesquisadores começaram a recorrer cada vez mais às competências formadas durante o estudo, entre as quais um lugar importante é ocupado pela competência social, estimado como o indicador mais importante da competência profissional de um especialista em geral e, em particular, , no campo das relações econômicas, trabalhistas e sociais.

The article considers the achievements of modern Russian historiography in the field of compiling documents for demographic census registration by the parish Orthodox clergy in the synodic period of the Russian Orthodox Church. Among the problems that have been the most reflected, especially in the regional historiography of recent decades are the external features of confessional statements, changes in their forms during the XVIII–XIX centuries, the estates groups and strata represented in them, changes in the composition of parish families over several years, the gender and age composition of parishioners, migration processes within a one particular locality. The greatest value undoubtedly is the statistical data on the performance of Christian sacraments of confession and communion by parishioners. The works of researchers who analyze and use ecclesiastical signed documents, note a huge information potential of this type of historical sources. Ecclesiastical signed documents reveal not only the peculiarities in the social structure of an individual parish, diocese or eparchy as a whole. They are a fairly reliable indicator of the population’s introduction to the Orthodox faith and rites, especially beginning from the early XIX century, when the possibilities of data falsification by the parish clergy were minimized. This type of mass sources, such as signed documents, makes it possible to consider the history of everyday life, household and housing conditions, the distance of the village to the temple. The revealed shortcomings in ecclesiastical signed documents include the following: fixing the population only present in the parish, giving amorphous reasons for non-fulfillment of the sacraments such as «failure», «negligence», inaccurate determination of parishioners’ age in remote parish villages, real attitude of believers to the church and dogmas.

Historical and ecclesiastical issues occupy an increasing place in the mass media and in the life of Russian society, since the Orthodox Church, along with other confessions, acts not only as a social institution, but also as a guardian of the material and spiritual culture of the past. In this regard, the history of the Orthodox confession in the country as a whole and in individual regions is of genuine interest. Various problems of the history of Orthodoxy are increasingly reflected in scientific research. Among the most pressing problems are aspects of the social and mental history of society, which caused the need to study historical sources, which previously, due to their vastness or dryness, had no major significance. The article presents an overview of the historical literature on the clerics statements, which were the material for accounting for the parish clergy and the Orthodox population of the Russian Empire since 1769. Introduced into scientific circulation more recently, the clerics statements are a specific historical source about the parish life of Russia during the imperial period. The article presents a historiographical review of the literature on clerics statements and focuses on works in which researchers, one way or another, using the materials of church records of the population, revealed various aspects of the functioning of an Orthodox parish. In general, historical literature can be divided into several blocks. Among them, scientific publications devoted directly to the social status of the parish clergy, their origin, education, moral character, and the practical activities of clerics occupy a leading position. A number of works reveal the state of the flock, its social structure, attitude towards the church and the Orthodox faith in general. Clerics statements are a unique source about the history of a particular parish, locality, diocese, and church art. Of separate note are the works in which the genesis and further changes in the structure and form of the document are considered. In general, the clerics statements have a huge information potential in the study of social history and confessional policy of the state.