Mishcherina Svetlana M. — the director of the Diocesan House-Museum of the Hieromartyr Onufriy (Gagalyuk)
E-mail: mischerina@mail.ru

This article examines the lack of a unified, systematic approach to the accounting and curation activities of church museums, which creates risks of loss, substitution, and distortion of the origin and semantic context of museum objects. This problem is, in some cases, significantly exacerbated by the lack of continuity among museum specialists, their lack of professional training, and the geographical remoteness of some museums. The task of every museum professional is to minimize such risks. The article also notes a characteristic feature of many church museums, which fundamentally distinguishes them from secular ones: the presence of liturgical life within their walls and the use of objects of museum significance during services. This, in turn, raises the question of accounting for and ensuring the preservation of such objects. The author concludes that it is necessary to create a methodological center to coordinate the work of all diocesan museums, regardless of their size and subordination, because unified approaches to organization of work in general and accounting principles in particular contribute to the data comparability between dioceses, simplify the interaction with state museums and archives, and create the basis for nationwide church catalogs and registers. Accounting and curatorial work in a church museum is responsible for the memory, continuity, and preservation of church property, entrusted to museum staff as custodians, not owners.

Accounting and curatorial activities, church museums, data comparability, interaction with state museums and archives, methodological center for diocesan museums, museum objects, risks of loss and misrepresentation of provenance, unified accounting principle.