Fight Against Drunkenness of Clergy in the Affairs of Tobolsk Spiritual Consistory in the Second Half of the 18th and in the 19th Centuries

The research is devoted to methods of struggle against drunkenness among the clerics of the Spiritual Department in the Tobolsk Diocese in the second half of the 18th-19th centuries. The chronological framework of the research covers the Synodal period in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), and the territorial framework the Tobolsk Diocese, the most extensive in the Russian Empire. The ROC viewed drinking as a vicious act. The article describes the punishment for the clergy for drunkenness in the Tobolsk Diocese in the stated period, the ROC's struggle with alcoholism until the beginning of the anti-alcohol campaigns. The analysis of the affairs of the Tobolsk Spiritual Consistory on the punishment of the clergy for drinking. As GBUTO GAT documents show, the punishment for drunkenness was to expel from priesthood, to dismiss from office and to exile to the monastery, to another church or, more rarely, to the Tobolsk Bishop's House "for hard labor". Other misdeeds and crimes associated with drinking were identified. According to the analysis of archival materials, drunkenness was accompanied with "non-performance of responsibilities", "neglect of the church", conducting rites without a clerk, absence at services on Sundays, feast and solemn (for example, during the Lent) days, "non-performance of secular rites", foul language, unauthorized absences, theft, misappropriation of public money, the loss of church property, concealing small amounts of money given for charity, visits to "suspicious houses", lasciviousness, adultery, abuse, quarrels with parishioners, "violent behavior", assault (including fights in the church, beating of deans, parents, wives and children, other men's wives), "attempt" on relatives, sometimes denunciations of colleagues, suicide attempts, "suspicion of homosexuality", and other offenses. The data found confirm that drunkenness was not only scary in itself, it entailed many other problems and could even lead to tragedy. The ROC first drew attention to the problem of alcoholism long before the anti-alcohol campaigns of the late 19th century, and began the fight against drunkenness from their subordinates, clerics, in the middle of the 18th century. Concern for the preservation of the documentary heritage of the Russian Orthodox Church by the Holy Governing Synod made it possible to study methods of struggle against drunkenness among the churchpeople in the Tobolsk Diocese in the second half of the 18th-20th centuries. In numerous studies about the struggle of the Russian Orthodox Church with alcoholism, attention focuses on the anti-alcohol campaigns of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, as well as on further action against alcoholism in the USSR period. However, the above examples indicate that these measures were actively taken in the second half of the 18th century. A further study of the content of the cases of the ROC's struggle with the drunkenness of the clergy in the Tobolsk Diocese in the second half of the 18th-19th centuries will clarify the process of punishment for this misconduct and to establish record keeping stages of this process.

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