The Problem of Information Value of Confessional Statements in Historical Literature

Abstract

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.