Charter

The delivered letter is an ancient institution, even in the Apostolic Church the so-called representative letters were known ( Apostolic Rules Nos. 12 and 33), without which none of the clergy could be accepted into church fellowship in another community, and representative letters issued sometimes to laymen had the value of recommendatory letters ( 2 Cor. 3: 1 ) or evidence of affiliation with the Church of Christ. The Fourth Ecumenical Council in 451 decided to issue “ poor and demanding help ” peaceful church letters (peaceful letters) instead of representative ones, which were intended only for people in doubt (rule 11), and clergymen unknown at their new residence (rule 13 )

Representative letters for clergy were sometimes called "canonical" or "correct," "Slavic Kormchaya" directly calls them (as interpreted by the 33rd apostolic rule) "staged scripture" or staged letter.

In the IV – V centuries, priests were given letters in African churches designating the year and day of ordination (“to distinguish the younger from the older”), which was enshrined in the 100th rule of the Cathedral of Carthage . The 6th rule of the IV Ecumenical Council of 451 prohibited the ordination without designating the place (temple) to which the new consecrated was determined.

In the Russian Church , which adopted the Byzantine practice, the posed letter appeared very early, but their samples were preserved only from the XVI century . They indicate: the name of the bishop at which the protege is ordained, the church to which he is appointed, the right to liturgy (to serve the liturgy ), to knit and decide (that is, to accept confession ), the prohibition to arbitrarily transfer to another church, year (from the creation of the world ), month and number of initiation. With the same content of the delivered letters, their form was different.

In the patriarchal period (after 1589 ), handwritten letters of letters were replaced by printed ones, which led to the unification of their form. While patriarch Joachim (1674–1690) signed letters of autonomy with his own hand, then under the patriarch Adrian (1690–1700), only the name of the patriarch began to be printed at the top of the letters. Double-sided printing of red wax was applied to the letter. The patriarchal clerks prepared the diplomas, they also stamped it, wrote it in a book and sent it to the patriarch for delivery to the protege. With the letter put, the new clergyman was already in the Tyun hut to the clerk of old; here, after new entries in the books, they gave him a new memory and collected duties from him, and in his memory they wrote that he was not returned to serve. When passing through all these instances, it was necessary to pay money everywhere: “ and there was a lot of red tape in everything mentioned above by the priest and deacon, and the ruble was supplied with losses of 4 or more ... ”.

With the establishment of the Holy Synod in 1721, the form of the ordained letter did not change, although in the letters of the clergy ordained in the Synodal region (the former diocese of the patriarch) instead of the name of the patriarch the title of the Holy Governing Synod was given, and instead of the patriarchal seal - the seal of the Synod with the imperial emblem.

In 1738, a new form of deed was established (on a printed sheet with the signature of the diocesan bishop and the appendix of his seal). In 1864, on the proposal of the Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret (Drozdov) and with the permission of the Synod, changes were made to some expressions in the priest’s letter.

In the Synodal period, reading a letter of honor by the dean in the congregation was considered as an act of introducing a newly appointed priest into the administration of his ministry. The priests were instructed to remember the contents of the letter and periodically reread it.

By the definition of the Synod, on April 1-8, 1897, the procedure was established for the issuance of the delivered letters to persons ordained by a bishop of another diocese: in this case, the placed letter should have been signed and issued by the bishop, under the jurisdiction of the clergyman, with the obligatory indication of the date of the ordination and the bishop who performed it. For such a case (as well as for the case of ordination by the vicar bishop), amendments were made to the printed form of the letter of attorney, a sample of which was sent to the diocese. According to the definition of the Synod, on February 4-17, 1898, the ordination of persons who entered the military service was performed at the place of former service (or residence) of the person where the letter of deed was issued.

• Explicit marten with a gram

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• Poloznev D.F. Blessed and placed letters of the Rostov and Vologda dioceses of the XVI-XVII centuries: (from the funds of the department of written sources of the State Historical Museum) // Messages of the Rostov Museum. Issue VIII. Rostov, 1995
• Belozerov N. A. Stavlnichestvennye and investigative affairs of the Vologda spiritual consistory as a source for studying the mentality of the parish clergy of the XVIII century // Ist. regional studies and archives: Materials of scientific and practical conferences, Vologda, October 30, 1998, March 16, 1999 Vologda, 2000. Issue. 6.