Parish Budget: The Economic Basis for the Activities of Confessional Communities in the 18th and Early 20th Centuries

This article discusses the main patterns in the formation of church property and the provision of the parish clergy with the means of subsistence. It is revealed that the natural and consistent evolution of property relations between the clergy and the laity over more than two centuries did not lead to significant changes. The emergence of parish trusteeships, called upon to place the spending of church funds under the joint control of the clergy and the laity, essentially led to the consolidation of the previously established norms of relations between the priest and parishioners in property matters. Keywords: clergy, finance, budget, property, peasants, Christianity, Orthodoxy, incom