Modern Church Museum: a continuation of the tradition or trend

The article uses the f ndings of the author"s research of the contribution of Orthodox clergy to the preservation and studying of the cultural heritage of Russia in the XIXth century, which are designed to conf rm the view that the pre-revolutionary tradition of creating «museums of ancient things», the repositories of the Russian Orthodox Church has been revived since the 1990s. Due to the fact that property relations between museums and Church organizations in the existing information f eld are discussed very often, it is quite natural that really signif cant initiatives of the Church in the f eld of protection of monuments often remain outside the research attention and outside the attention of the public. The activities of the Patriarchal Council for culture, the approval of the position of the diocesan keeper of antiquities, the creation of a model charter of the church museum, the holding of specialized events, the emergence of new museums as cultural markers of the museum sphere of Russia, in our opinion, need to be popularized. It is proposed to take a new look at both the social and scientif c problem, revealing the current trends in the existence of church museums and organizations that contribute to their development.