SOME DISCOVERIES OF PRIVAT-DOCENT G.I. CHELPANOV IN A MOSCOW ARCHIVE AND THEIR MODERN CONTEXT

Abstract

In 1891, a former student of the Mariupol Gymnasium, privat-docent of Moscow University, Georgy Chelpanov, searched the Moscow Archives for four documents written in Greek and related to the history of his people - the Azov Greeks. Two of them, dated 1770, are certificates of the Patriarch of Constantinople: the ordination of the Constantinople Church protosyncellus Ignatius to the metropolitan of Gottia and Kafa; the appeal of the patriarch to the Christians of the Gothic diocese in Crimea with an order to obey Metropolitan Ignatius. Two other documents that have a contemporary translation into Russian represent the petitions of Metropolitan Ignatius - one to the Holy Synod on October 29, 1771 and the other - to Empress Catherine II. The content and tone of these petitions, published thanks to the discovery of Georgy Chelpanov, in the local history collection of the Mariupol Gymnasium (1892), leaves no doubt that the newly appointed Metropolitan does not have the moral qualities necessary for his status. The compiler of the Mariupol collection and the publisher of these petitions conclude that Metropolitan Ignatius was obliged by his appointment to Russian diplomacy. In 1778, under the leadership of Ignatius, a deportation of the Christians of the Crimea to the Azov Sea region and a subordination of the Gothic metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Russian Synod took place. Documents on the attitude towards this act of the Patriarch of Constantinople are not known to us.