The Church and Archaeological Cabinet of the Moscow Theological Academy and the Personality of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I (Simansky)

On the 145th Anniversary of the Patriarch’s Birth

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the role of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I (Simansky) in the renewal and development of the largest church museum in modern Russia and the only church museum during the Soviet Union — the Church and Archaeological Cabinet of the Moscow Theological Academy. Patriarch Alexy I not only contributed to the opening of Moscow theological schools and their return to the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, played an important role in the preservation of monuments of church art within the walls of the Church-Archaeological Cabinet, arranged with his blessing in the Royal Halls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, but also became the ideological inspirer of the concept of the academic museum that exists to this day. Brought up in a pre-revolutionary academy, Patriarch Alexy had a direct, living connection with the professors of church archeology at the Moscow Theological Academy of the 19th century, and indirectly this connection reached the Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret. The source study base for the disclosure of the topic was the diary entries of the godson of Patriarch Alexy — the head of the Church and Archaeological Cabinet, Archpriest Alexy Ostapov, as well as the collections «Materials of the Church and Archaeological Cabinet», «Journals of the Academic Council», stored in the library and archive of the Moscow Theological Academy.