Accounting of Church Equipment of the Vessels of Volunteer Fleet Dobroflot at the End of the 19th Century (On the Example of the Ministry of Priest Georgy Levitskiy)

Abstract

The service of the Orthodox clergy on the Dobroflot vessels remains under-studied in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. This publication is the second in a series designed to fill this historiographic gap. The article highlights the state of the church property of the Volunteer fleet ships, on the example of the ministry of a cleric of the Yekaterinburg diocese, priest Georgy Levitskiy. Acceptance of church utensils was the first thing that a clergyman had to do upon taking office. The article is mainly based on the notes of priest Georgy, since he was assigned to vessels four times (of which three times to the steamboat Saratov) and left detailed descriptions of each voyage. The Cleric’s Notes are the largest source on the service of the naval clergy of the Dobroflot and allow not only to find out the situation with church utensils in a given year, but also to see how its state changes over time. For comparison, the notes of priest Alexei Livanskiy and the report of priest Nikolai Dyakov were used. Owing to these materials, it can be assumed that the diligence of priest Georgy and the care of the sailors contributed to the fact that the church equipment on the steamer Saratov was not only in decent condition, but the number of liturgical items increased from year to year. However, the situation with church property was not so favorable on other ships.

Keywords

• navy priest
• naval clergy
• orthodox clergy on the vessels of dobroflot
• army and naval clergy
• church equipment