Observation cases of 1959 on religious buildings as a repressive measure against church parishes

The article is devoted to the events connected with the next aggravation of church-state relations in the late 1950s. The author focuses on the organization of work on the inventory of property of church parishes, which was carried out in 1959. The Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church. All parishes operating in the post-war period were subject to revision. In order to implement this project, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church developed standard forms with questions for distribution through its commissioners for parishes of all regions, territories and autonomous republics of the USSR. The questionnaires were based on the form of pre-revolutionary clear sheets. The forms filled out by the staff of the parishes were the so-called "Observation cases for religious buildings (premises) belonging to religious associations (communities)." Almost all of these documents have been preserved in the archives. The observational cases on the temples of the Moscow region were postponed in the Central State Archive of the Moscow Region (TSGAMO) in the fund 7383 (Authorized by the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers for the Moscow Region).The author comes to the conclusion that the inventory of parish property in the 1950s was of a repressive nature, due to the fact that the purpose of the whole event was to increase economic pressure on the Church as a whole and on the basic element of the church structure - the parish. In addition, the documents that compiled the Observation Files show that simultaneously with the information about the material values owned by religious associations, the authorities once again attempted to monitor all church activities at the parish level – to find out the extent of the religiosity of the population and the degree of its involvement in church life. The article is based on archival materials, a number of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.