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The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs included three departments. The Asian Department was the only one created on a geographical basis. It focused on the Oriental Russian policy, on the Russian subjects business in the East, and on the training of translators and dragomans for Russian missions in the area. The Asian Department (renamed after the First Department in 1897) consisted in two sections: the Far East and the Middle East. In the Middle Eastern section, an office called the Political Table was in charge of enciphering and deciphering telegrams, and also the Slavic, Greek, and Turkish Tables (later, the Persian, and other tables were formed. At each table worked two or three persons.
The ministry supervised the activity of Russian presence in the world, among them the Russian Embassy in Constantinople and the Russian Consulate in Jerusalem (founded in 1858).
Until the Crimean War, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem was taking care of the Russian pilgrims in accordance with Russian authorities. In exchange, the Russian Embassy in Constantinople provided diplomatic and political support for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem. In fact, since 1820, the only Russian diplomatic mission in Palestine had been the vice-consulate in Jaffa. From 1838, Jerusalem was under the jurisdiction of the Russian Consulate General in Beirut, which was responsible for the entire Palestine. In 1847, Saint Petersburg sent to the Holy City the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission (REM) to control Russian pilgrims, and to become a direct channel of ecclesiastic communication between the Russian Synod and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem. The REM suspended its activities during the Crimean war; and, in 1857, it revived under the guidance of Bishop Cyril Naumov (1857-1863) who replaced Archimandrite Porphyry Ouspensky (1847-1854).
The objective of the REM under Bishop Cyril, according to a project of the minister of foreign affairs Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov (1856-1882), was to serve Russia’s ecclesiastic and diplomatic interests in Palestine, which, in practice, meant that the mission had a political role to play. Since there was still no consulate in Jerusalem, Bishop Cyril was receiving instructions and tasks from three different sources: a) the Minister of Foreign Affairs, b) the Director of the Asian Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and c) the Russian Ambassador in Constantinople. The head of the REM was sending his reports to these three different structures, whereas the Consul General in Beirut was instructed to provide him regular support and assistance. The mission, as an ecclesiastic institution, was subordinate to the Synod of the Russian Church, but, from 1857 till 1862, it was under the control of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
During the nineteenth century, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held three different archives: the St Petersburg Main Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the State Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Saint Petersburg, and also the Moscow Main Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MGAMID). In the oldest Moscow Archive (it was founded on the base of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs in 1724) the main documents on the Russian history till the early-nineteenth century were kept; later, the collections passed to the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA). In the Saint Petersburg State archive (also called the State Archive of the Russian Empire, founded from documents of non-diplomatic character on the base of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1834), they kept materials on the tsar family, notorious criminal trials, industry, culture, and history of peoples of Russia. In 1864, the State Archive of the Russian Empire was united with the Saint Petersburg Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; later, its collections passed to the RGADA.
But the main documents on the current activity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including those on the activity of the Consulate in Jerusalem, were kept in the Saint Petersburg Main Archive, materials of which passed to the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire. Its collections were shaped according the principle of the provenance of documents, and their topics.
Secretary of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, Rector and Vice Rector of Astrakhan’s first university, Correspondent Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
He was the most important representative of Russian critical study of the liturgy. After training and teaching in the Kazan' Spiritual Academy, he was professor of liturgics and Christian archaeology at the Spiritual Academy of Kiev (1884–1907). His life's work was devoted to the sifting and editing of Greek and Slavic manuscripts of liturgical texts, leading to the three-volume “Description of the Liturgical Manuscripts Preserved in the Libraries of the Orthodox East”
The Synod is an ecclesiastical governing body created by Tsar Peter I in 1721 to head the Russian Orthodox Church, replacing the patriarchate of Moscow. Peter created the Synod, made up of representatives of the hierarchy obedient to his will, to subject the church to the state, and appointed a secular official, the chief procurator, to supervise its activities. The Synod persecuted all dissenters and censored publications, and Peter disposed of church property and revenues for state purposes at his own discretion. In 1917 a church council reestablished the patriarchate, but the new Soviet government soon nationalized all church-held lands.
The Procurator (Russian: прокурор, prokuror) was an office initially established in 1722 by Peter the Great, the first Emperor of the Russian Empire, as part of reforms to bring the Russian Orthodox Church more directly under his control.
The Russian word also has the meaning of prosecutor.
The Chief Procurator (also Ober-Procurator; обер-прокурор, ober-prokuror) was the official title of the head of the Most Holy Synod, effectively the lay head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and a member of the Tsar's cabinet. Konstantin Pobedonostsev, a former tutor both of Alexander III and of Nicholas II, was one of the most powerful men to hold the post, from 1880 to 1905.
The General Procurator (Procurator General) and the Chief Procurator were major supervisory positions in the Russian Governing Senate, which functioned from 1711 to 1917, with their meaning changing over time. Eventually Chief Procurator became the title of the head of a department of the Senate.
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The Church of the Pater Noster is a Roman Catholic church located on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. It is part of a Carmelite monastery, also known as the Sanctuary of the Eleona (French: Domaine de l'Eleona). The Church of the Pater Noster stands right next to the ruins of the 4th-century Byzantine Church of Eleona.
The Carmelite convent of Pater Noster was founded in 1875. It originated from a meeting between Princess Aurelia Bossi de la Tour d'Auvergne (1809-1889), and Sister Xavier du Coeur de Jésus, a professed nun from Lisieux (France) Carmelite convent, who had spent nine years in Saigon Carmelite convent.
After some years of service in Saigon, Mother Xavier of the Heart of Jesus returned to France but her missionary spirit and certainly the Holy Spirit inspired her to visit the holy sites in Jerusalem. She traveled to Jerusalem where she met the Princess of la Tour d'Auvergne who had used her wealth to revitalize the cave of the Pater Noster, a chapel, and the first cloistered monastery of Pater and was looking to entrust it to a religious community.
The princess and the Carmelite nun reached an agreement very quickly. Mother Xavier visited the site that seemed to her ideal for a Carmelite convent: "What a magnificent view! On one side the whole city of Jerusalem; on the other side the Dead Sea, the road to Bethany and Bethphage. Close by on the right, the place of the Ascension; and on the left, the cave where Jesus taught, known as the Pater. At the foot of the mountain, the cave of the Agony, the garden of Gethsemane, the brook of Kedron, and the Siloam fountain. It would be very fortunate for us to be able to build a Carmelite convent here."
Mother Xavier returned to France in order to help bring together the founding sisters of the Carmelite convent of the Pater Noster. The Monastery of Carpentras provided the first group of Carmelite nuns.
The Carmelite convent of the Pater Noster was officially inaugurated in 1874.