«...This new-born Penza "Chrysostom": the government and the Orthodox clergy in the era of the "thaw". Based on the materials of the Penza Region State Archive

The need to study the social role of the Russian Orthodox Church and the clergy in the era of the late USSR reflects a social demand for a scientific understanding of the phenomenon of religious revival, which was formed despite the imposition of an atheistic worldview. An effective methodological tool for solving this problem is the anthropological approach, which focuses the researcher on the study of socio-psychological aspects, the analysis of practices of spiritual and moral service. The reasonableness of the conclusions complements the application of the historical and biographical method both in relation to the "main" and "collective" characters of the narrative, as well as a new local history based on such constructs as social role, social interaction within a certain living space. The corpus of sources is formed by materials of personal origin, office documentation of the authorized representatives of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, presented in the funds of the State Archive of the Penza region. In the course of the source analysis, it was possible to identify a wide range of information potential of documents. Despite the formal aim of searching for evidence of the downward development of the Church and the victory of secularized consciousness, the reports of the commissioners of the "thaw" period record a poorly concealed statement of the triumph of Orthodox identity. At the same time, the markers of strengthening "church influence" are: the growth of incomes of religious communities, the scale of fulfillment of requirements (primarily baptisms), attendance at churches, the development of pilgrimages to "holy places", the scaling up of the clergy's social service practices. The preservation and reproduction of Orthodox identity is explained by the need for adaptation, assimilation by the population of the value orientations of the new industrial society by turning to the spiritual origins of Orthodox civilization and experiencing previous experiences. On the other hand, there was an evolution of confessional politics, which resulted in the liberalization of political realities. Despite the tightening of the tax policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church and the bureaucratization of the procedure for performing religious rites, administrative zeal was blocked by the appearance of the slightest threat of mass riots. The phenomenon of conscious choice of the path of spiritual and moral service is considered by the example of the life path of the famous Penza teacher, historian, museum worker and clergyman Mikhail Anatolyevich Lebedev (1889-1879).