Ukrainian Interfaith Families in the Context of Church, Marriage, and Social Relations of the 19th Century

The aim. In the article (based on the materials of church statistical books of Orthodox parishes in the Right and Left Bank of Ukraine, ego-documents, documentation of the directive and administrative direction, canonical and fiction), an imaginary collective portrait of interfaith families is created in the representation of marriage partners of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic faiths—in the context of marriage-social policy of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Research methods. The interdisciplinary direction of intelligence led to the use, in addition to general scientific methods, of special historical methods: quantitative, comparative, prosopographic and critical analysis. Main results. Based on personalized examples and quantitative indicators of bi-confessional families, the main vectors of the policy of the Russian autocracy in the 19th century are demonstrated. They are aimed at the Russification of the church-religious life of the Ukrainian population, the monopolization of the Russian Orthodox Church, the conversion of persons of other Christian denominations to the Orthodox faith, primarily by matrimonial means, and the upbringing of born children in Orthodox traditions. The sacrament of the wedding of representatives from different Christian denominations was allowed, subject to obtaining appropriate permission from the spiritual authorities and was held in the premises of the church, of which the bride was a parishioner. A significant part of these families was focused on the Right-Bank Ukraine. Based on the calculated data of the total number of Orthodox parishioners and interfaith married couples in the Kamenets district of the Podolsk province in 1842-1875, it shows a reduction in the number of bi-confessional families by almost half. The reduction in the number of such families is shown more intensively by the example of the digital indicators of the Orthodox parish community in the city of Zbryzh of the same county. Apostasy from the Orthodox faith was persecuted, and priests of various Christian churches were punished for illegal weddings of brides on religious grounds