Overseeing the preaching ministry in the Russian Church in the late Synodal period (as exemplified by the Samara Diocese)

The article is devoted to the studying of such a specific function of the diocesan authority as the management in the field of preaching in the Russian Church of the end of the Synodal period. The censor functions of various parts of the diocesan administration are considered herein according the materials of the Samara Diocese. The situation with the preaching in the Samara Diocese of the late XIX – early XX centuries was extremely unsatisfactory, which is not least explained by the cumbersome bureaucratic system of censoring sermons that existed then. The system of governance in the establishment of preaching was even more bureaucratic in the diocese than required by the Charter of spiritual consistories. The censoring of “next-in-turn” sermons, associated with the passage of several instances (a rural dean, a special county censor), took a long time, while being not a very effective means. Often the requirements of the diocesan authorities were obviously impossible to implement. The considered sources allow us to state the growing wave of discontent of the clergy towards the diocesan censorship in the early twentieth century. Despite the very heavy fines, a number of priests essentially ignored the orders of the consistory. Awareness of the problem was among the ranks priests and the ruling bishops. However, the centralized system of church management and the lack of skill to take initiative delayed the resolution of this issue. In the end, the situation changed only in 1910, when the appointment of two mandatory sermons was canceled by a decree of the consistory. The “next-in-turn” preaching was preserved only in the cathedrals, where all the priests of the provincial capital delivered homilies. Thus, the practice was approximated closer to those provisions that are spelled out in the Charter of spiritual consistories. The polemics of the early twentieth century revealed the problems of preaching and fetched to the preparation for active discussions on this question in the precouncil instances and after that at the Local Council of 1917–1918