The Status and Activity of Deaconesses of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Russian Empire (middle 19th - early 20th)

The article considers a brief history of the Deaconesses’ Communities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Russian Empire. The communities depended on the General Consistory of the Lutheran Church, which had its own statute (1832), according to which the Church was controlled by the Ministry of Interior. Deaconesses’ Communities were located in six of the Baltic, St. Petersburg and Moscow provinces of the Lutheran Church and had local Consistories. From the mid-nineteenth century the Communities were located in major centers: St. Petersburg (1858), Riga (1862), Mitau (1866), Reval (1872) and some others settlements and towns. Deaconesses worked in the places of compact residence of the Germans-Lutherans in the Baltic region and in the South of Ukraine (Kherson’ province). The number of deaconesses was very small, they were obliged to live under the regulations of the Evangelical Church, to execute the functions of professional sisters of mercy at hospitals, orphanages and at home. This form of deaconesses’ activity was similar to the status and functions of the Sisters of Mercy of the Russian red cross society, according to the Normal statute (1903). The discussions about the status of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, founded by Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna in 1911–1914s, point out that the religious orientation of the deaconesses’ community unites them with the similar activity of the Convent’s sisters, based, however, on the Orthodox tradition