Scientific Study of Metropolitanate of Kyiv Documents in the Synodal Period as an Information Source

Nowadays, archival materials related to functioning of Metropolitanate of Kyiv form a significant part of the entire National Archival Fund of Ukraine. They contain information considering not only purely church life, but also matters of cultural, social, economic and political nature.
This article examines the process of implementing Metropolitanate of Kyiv documents into scientific circulation, as well as highlights hindrances faced by scientists in different periods – imperial, Soviet, modern.
The aim of the article is to reveal the process of scientists’ research of Metropolitanate of Kyiv documents as an information source during the 19th and the early 21st cent.
The research methodology grounds on the application of general and special methods. Among the general methods, the most effective are dialectical and logical ones, which are used to clarify the connection between social processes and scientific studies. Among the special methods, the historical and comparative ones are chosen, which give the opportunity to track the process of studying Metropolitanate of Kyiv documents as an information source and achievements in this direction during different chronological periods.
The scientific novelty consists in the attempt to generalise and clarify conditions and peculiarities of researching the documents informational potential of Metropolitanate of Kyiv in the Synodal period.
Conclusions. There can be singled out three main periods during which, to one degree or another, researchers paid attention to and actualised the informational potential of mentioned above archival sources. The first period – from the end of the 18th cent. to the beginning of the 20th cent. – had the character of initial studying and implementing into scientific circulation some certain documents, to a lesser extent these were document complexes of Metropolitanate of Kyiv. The second period was already the time of the Soviet power system functioning in 1920– 1991. The third period of studying these documents as an information source dates back to the times of Ukrainian Independence after the USSR collapse, since 1991.