Protecting Church Property in Petrograd in the First Months of Soviet Power (Publication of Archival Documents from TsGALI St. Petersburg)

In 1918 all church properties were declared national estate, in ac- cordance with the decree "On separation of Church from State and School from Church." The decree started the process of alienation of church properties. The artistic intelligentsia tried to protect the cul- tural valuables, and the United Artistic and Historical Commission was one of the first to interfere. Most of its members were among the founders of the magazine "Old Years". The Commission, origi- nally created for the inventory of the Winter palace property in 1917, by 1918 functioned as the State Council for the Arts. To this day, re- searchers have not paid sufficient attention to its work, despite a large number of archival documents, including such a rich source as the typescript of the journals of the Commission's meetings. These journals help to show the Commission's outstanding role in protect- ing church property. The article is accompanied by the publication of the text of one of the meetings of the Commission from January-Feb- ruary 1918. The document is being published for the first time