Parish charity during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 as reflected on the pages of the accounting papers of the Moscow Ecclesiastical Consistory (based on the materials of the Central State Archives of Moscow)

Abstract

The article deals with the research of the issue of donations in favour of the Imperial Russian Army and the Imperial Russian Navy during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Those donations were collected by the parishes of the Moscow Eparchy and fixed in the documents of the Moscow Ecclesiastical Consistory. The research focuses on the size and the content of the donations. It also analyzes the dynamics of their revenues to the Treasury of the Moscow Ecclesiastical Consistory and evaluates how that money was used for the purposes intended. Based on a comparison of the cash inflow for 1904 and 1905, it is accordingly concluded that the war-related charity of the parishioners of the churches of the Moscow Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church and the related structures was most active in the first year of the war, especially in the first half of it. That fact may indicate, on the one hand, a high degree of spiritual mobilization and inspiration of a significant part of the Russian society connected with the outbreak of the war, and, on the other, the subsequent disappointment with the course of the war and the growth of anti-war and revolutionary sentiments in Moscow and in its vicinity. The study was based on the previously unpublished monthly income and expenditure statements of the Moscow Ecclesiastical Consistory for 1904 and 1905, stored in the Central State Archives of the City of Moscow.