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  Documents from church archives


Everybody knows that Churches registered births, marriages and deaths in the special books called church books. Keeping of civil records was not the only duty of the churches. In the Russia Empire the churches in fact functioned as a kind of state office at parish level. Each priest was informed about all decisions of the officials and was obliged to inform his parish on the newest laws and decrees of all of the government levels, and not only to inform but also to take part in the implementation of these decisions. See, for example, the system of recruiting.

A Priest had plenty of work. He was responsible for the education of children and their vaccination, the morality of adults, the lawfulness of pagasts’ courts, the collecting of information for statistical surveys, putting the witnesses to the oath, punishing some offenders etc. No wonder that all his activities created a lot of papers that were gathered in church archives.

Some years ago, presumably in the 1970s, a decision was made to clear up the church archives in Latvia (Latvian SSR). Quite possibly this was an idea of Soviets, but may be it was a decision of Church officials themselves. What is more important, the State archives refused to take documents from the churches, and these documents were transported to waste paper factories.

There were always big hills of waste paper in paper factories. The collectors of different interests were digging in these hills in hope to find something interesting, and it is a pity that at that time I did not take part in this activity. Books, postcards, especially of prewar time, were in great demand, but some documents from the church archives could also be taken away from these hills. Just for your information, this activity was fully illegal - the factory management should have prevented any stealing of waste paper from the depot. It was not very easy, because the guardsmen themselves could be with interest in collecting, or collectors could arrange some agreements with guards. I have recently heard of a collector who worked in a paper factory, was interested in stamp printings on the documents of previous centuries, cut them out of the documents, and the remains of the documents sent to milling machines, because he could not steal so many documents. By the way, I have several documents with stamp printings cut out.

In this or in another not fully legal way some of documents from the church archives occurred in private hands and now are offered in Riga stores. I have bought about 1500 of them from the initial number… Well, let us estimate the number of documents. If we assume that in a year a church had received 1000 documents, then 200 churches would receive 200,000 papers per year, and in 100 years 20 millions of documents would be collected. If you think it is too many, let us agree on 2 millions.

The documents from church archives are part of correspondence - the papers a church received from various organizations. The Higher Church authorities wrote to churches, the churches corresponded with each other, secular official institutions informed churches or asked information from them and so on. Strictly speaking, the documents I have in my possession as a rule do not provide the primary information. Mostly they are copies, or excerpts of other documents certified by appropriate officials, though in other cases they are letters to the priests written by other priests in one copy, of course. In many cases the documents contain information about real people, and I am not sure if the original sources are still available, so I plan to index these documents for this Site.

The main part of these documents evidently were gathered in the Ev. Lutheran church of Trikata [Trikatten] parish and in the Greek Orthodox church in Valmiera [Wolmar]. There are also some correspondence received by other Greek Orthodox churches in Vidzeme [Livland], but I suppose that these churches were liquidated in their time and the documents went to the church in Valmiera, where they were kept until the archive was closed.

I have grouped the documents in the following groups:

Birth certificates. There are not so many birth certificates in the stock. They mainly were sent to a church, in case a child was born in another place, but it should have been registered in the parish the parents belonged to.

Confirmation information. The confirmation was necessary in order to be married by the Ev.-Lutheran Church, so people wishing to be joined in the matrimony had to produce an appropriate certificate, if they were not confirmed at the same church. No confirmation exists in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Permissions of marriages. The marriage was allowed beginning from the age 18, but, if the person was not of lawful age (21), permission of the parents was needed. Both civil and military state servants needed permission of their superiors.

Information on proclamations. Each couple before wedding had to be proclaimed in their church or churches, if the parts were from different parishes i.e. the parish was informed after the divine service about the intent of the couple, in order everybody could express eventual objections against the wedding. Three proclamations were obligatory, and, if the church after the third of them got no objections, the wedding could take place in this or in another church. In the latter case the information about successful declarations was sent to the wedding church.

Objections against marriages. Normally nobody objected against weddings. It happened only in rare cases, so there are not so many documents of this kind.

Information on a marriage. If a couple was joined in matrimony not in their parish, or they belonged to different parishes, the appropriate parish was informed about the marriage.

Permission of the second (next) marriage. Widows or widowers, if they wished to marry for the next time, were obliged to clear up possible property problems with their children of the previous marriage. It was the pagasts government that was obliged to register any possessions of the deceased spouse and to decide how the rights of the children should have been stand up for. If this was done, the local government issued a certificate that had to be handed to the Pastor. These documents are the most numerous in my document file (about 200).

Parochial notes. If a parish member or a family left their parish, they received in their parish a document called Parochial note (in German - Parochialschein, in Latvian - draudzes zīme) with the information important to the Pastor of the parish they went to.

Permission of a burial. If a case of death was investigated by police, the special permission was needed to bury the corpse. The investigation was obligatory (since 1850s) in case of sudden death, suicide or murder etc.

Information on a burial. If a member of a parish died in a foreign part, the Pastor who buried him/her was obliged to inform the Pastor of the home parish, in order the latter could register the death in the church book. In the real world it did not always happen, but many documents of this type will be described here later.

Demands for putting to the oath. To occupy some positions, a candidate was obliged to swear he will be honest and devoted. Similarly, some witnesses in courts were sworn-in as well. In the cases of need, both the person and the cover letter with the petition to put him to the oath were sent to his Priest.

Demands of information. Some official organizations and courts of different level could ask information on the civil state of a person (birth date, children etc.)

Decisions of the Consistory. Only a Consistory could divorce a marriage. The cases of seduction were also to be examined in a Consistory. Its decision was sent to the appropriate Pastor. I have only some documents of the Consistory concerning real people.

Instructions of the Church authorities. There are available rather many letters from the Consistories and other Church authorities to their Priests. These documents contain practically no genealogical information, therefore I did not usually buy them, unless they contained lists of converts and some relevant information. They also came in my possession in cases if I bought a stock of documents in wholesale. If the documents clear some aspects of life in Russia Empire, they will be published here.

Instructions and orders of the civil authorities. These letters (Patents) are also not directly related to family history research, but they inform about the legal environment of the Empire, because they are mainly translations of the Laws that were adopted in the Empire.

Documents concerning economic activities of a church. These are mainly receipts that certify the fact of buying something for the church. The finances of particular churches were revised by higher Church authorities and therefore these documents were kept in the archives. For us they are of some interest, because they give information about the prices and also contain names of the sellers.

Information on confessions. In the Russia Empire everybody was obliged to belong to one of officially recognized religions and to attend an appropriate church. To confess was also an obligatory duty, if the religion implied confessions. The attendance of the church was controlled by the priests, and a special book of confessions was kept in the churches. If for any reasons a person confessed in another church, the priest of this church informed the priest of the home church about the fact. These letters can be found in the church archives.

Correspondence between different Churches. There are rather many documents from the correspondence between Lutheran and Orthodox churches that say a lot about the relationships between them. As in many cases these relationships had direct impact on the people, it is of interest to know these matters.

Other documents. In this group came the documents that did not fit in the previous groups.

 

© Bruno Martuzāns. 1995-2002