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Author Guidelines

Disclaimer: Last revision February 2025, comes into force since February, 2025. The rules describe the conditions of publication of manuscripts (articles) through the site http://churchhistory.elpub.ru. The Editorial Board is ready to answer questions and help authors by e-mail: journal@churchhistory.ru.

Russian Journal of Church History has been issued since 2019 at the initiative and with the participation of the Department of Church History of M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow). It is a scientific and practical, peer-reviewed journal for historians and art historians. The main focus of the publication – all topics relating to the history of the Church, different denominations of Christianity, including Western and Eastern denominations, as well as Church art and archaeology.

Research articles, publications and translations of sources, reviews of scientific monographs, collections and articles are published. The Russian Journal of Church History makes every effort to bring the requirements for manuscripts published in the journal to international standards. Namely: to comply with the recommendations of COPE issued by the Committee on publishing ethics (COPE) – http://www.publicationethics.org.uk.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right to first publish the work, which is automatically licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to distribute the work with mandatory preservation of references to the authors of the original work and the original publication in this journal.The author grants the non-exclusive right to the journal to present, distribute and communicate the publication to the public in any way.

Russian Journal of Church History does not accept materials:

1) already published (in any language) or with a level of originality under the Antiplagiate system below 75%;

2) sent earlier (or simultaneously) to another journal;

3) published in open access in electronic form (web page, personal page of the author);

4) if the book containing them or part of the book will be published before publication in the journal.

Russian Journal of Church History accepts the following manuscripts:

1.Original research articles based on research results.The volume of the article is 40 000-50 000 characters, together with the summary and keywords in Russian and English. The volume of the annotation is up to 250 words.

2.Publications of previously unpublished sources (epigraphic sources, manuscripts, fragments of manuscripts, documents, letters and other sources of a personal nature, visual sources) up to 40 000 characters.

3.Translations of sources into Russian, made from the original language, with source and textual commentary up to 40 000 characters.

4.Reviews of scientific publications-books, collections of articles, articles.Volume: up to 15 000 characters.The Editorial Board reserves the right to select reviews, including on the basis of the scientific value of the peer-reviewed publication.

5.Review article.The requirement for scientific review: narrowness and relevance of the subject, not reasoning about the problem, and the answer to a specific question that does not have a clear solution today.A review should be a scientific work: analysis and generalization of sources with setting a goal.The number of sources should be exhaustive; most sources should be from the last 5 years.The review should be distinguished from the lecture and chapter from the textbook.Volume up to 40 000 characters.

SECTION 1. OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

In addition to the main file with the manuscript, designed for "blind" review, the following official documents are provided (uploaded to the site as "Additional files").

1.Cover letter.

2.Information about the article.

Requirements for registration of documents of all documents are detailed in "Recommendations of the journal on formatting of manuscripts".

The absence of a cover letter/information file or incomplete text is the basis for refusal to accept the manuscript for consideration.

SECTION 2. TEXT OF MANUSCRIPT

1. The main file of the manuscript is automatically sent to the reviewer for "blind" review, it should not contain the names of authors and institutions.The file contains only the following sections:

• Article title
• Resume with keywords
• List of abbreviations
• Text
• Thanks (if any)
• List of references
• Tables, figures (if they can be embedded in the text of the Word format).

The title of the manuscript begins with a capital letter (Images of saints ...), at the end of the point is not put.The title should clearly reflect the purpose of the work.

Resume in free form-sections are issued each with a separate line.The summary should contain clearly formulated goals, objectives, methodology and an indication of the source base of the study.Resume length: no more than 250 words.

List of abbreviations: the list of abbreviations used in the article (including text, tables and figures) includes, in addition to copyright, all accepted abbreviations of published source bodies, as well as abbreviations indicating archival, library and museum ciphers, sigils, inventory numbers.

The text of the original research article should correspond to the plan stated in the summary, contain sections corresponding to the task statement, review of the source and historiographical base, explanation of methods and strategy of research, analysis of the material, results and conclusions.Depending on the specifics of the study, the composition and layout of the manuscript may vary.The manuscript can be divided into paragraphs and sections.

Acknowledgements: all participants who do not meet the criteria of authorship should be listed in the section of Acknowledgements, which is located at the end of the text of the manuscript before the section Literature.

Design of graphs, diagrams and figures: tables and figures should be visual and provide the reader with visual information directly related to the issues raised in the manuscript.

The names of graphs and figures and captions under the figures are placed in a separate list, which should be placed at the end of the text of the manuscript.

All copyrighted material used must be provided with a copy of the permission to publish.

2. Review Design

Text preparation book reviews are set out separately in the "Recommendations of the journal on formatting of manuscripts".

Reviews of scientific monographs and collections are reviewed.The Editorial Board has the right to request the text of the reviewed book or article from the author of the review.

SECTION 3. COMPLETENESS OF THE MANUSCRIPT

To submit the manuscript to the journal the author prepares the following documents:

1.The text of the article (for “blind” reviewing).

2.Cover letter.

3.Information file with Title page, information about authors and information about sponsors, grants and conflicts of interest.

4.Picture files (if available).

The manuscript is sent via the electronic platform: www.churchhistory.elpub.ru

SECTION 4. COPYRIGHT AND PUBLISHING POLICY

This section governs the relationship between the Editorial Board of the Russian Journal of Church History (the "Editorial Board") and the author or team of authors who submitted their manuscript for publication in the Russian Journal of Church History (the "Author" and the "Journal").

The Author, sending the manuscript to the Editorial office, agrees that the Editorial Office of the Journal shall have non-exclusive property rights to use the manuscript (the material transferred to the Editorial office, including such protected objects of copyright as copyright photographs, drawings, diagrams, tables, etc.), in particular to reproduce in print and on the Internet; to distribute; to translate into any languages of the world; to export and import copies of the journal with the Author's article for distribution, to bring it to the public.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to carry out scientific editing of the manuscript and stylistic editing, which is agreed with the Author, as well as to bring the design of graphs, figures and tables in accordance with the design of the Journal, without changing the meaning of the information provided. In case of untimely response of the Author to the request of the Editorial Board, the Editorial Board may, at its discretion, make changes to the article or refuse in publication.

The Author guarantees that he has exclusive rights to use the material transferred to the Editorial office. In case of unreasonableness of these guarantees and presentation in this regard by the third claims to Edition, the Author independently and at the expense undertakes to settle all claims. The Editorial Board is not responsible to third parties for the unreasonableness of the Author's guarantees.

The Author reserves the right to use the published material, its fragments and parts for personal, including scientific and teaching purposes.

The Author transfers the above rights to the Editorial Board without limitation of their validity, on the territory of all countries of the world without limitation, including on the territory of the Russian Federation.

The rights to the manuscript are considered to be transferred by the Author to the Editorial office from the moment of sending an information letter on the acceptance of the manuscript to the publication.

Reprinting of materials published in the Journal by other individuals and legal entities is possible only with the obligatory indication of the Journal name, number and year of publication.

The Editorial office is not responsible for the accuracy of the information provided by the Author.

The Author, sending the manuscript to the Editorial office, gives permission for the use and processing of personal data.

Sending to the Editorial office of works that have already been sent to other publications or printed in them is absolutely not allowed. Articles submitted in violation of the rules of formatting are not accepted by the Editorial Board of the Journal for consideration.

SECTION 5. PROCEDURE FOR REVIEWING MANUSCRIPTS

1. The manuscript should be sent to the Editorial office in electronic form through the electronic editorial platform. The manuscript should be designed in accordance with the "Recommendations of the journal on formatting of manuscripts".

2. To the Author is sent a notification letter on receipt of the manuscript with the number (ID), which will be used in subsequent correspondence.

3. The manuscript must pass the primary selection: The Editors have the right to refuse in publication or send their comments to the article, which must be taken into account by the Author before reviewing.

Verification of completeness of the manuscript: in case of non-compliance with the requirements of the Publication rules for authors to the completeness of the manuscript or its design, the Editors have the right to refuse in publication or offer to send the missing materials.

The manuscript should be checked in the system "Antiplagiat". The originality of the manuscript must be at least 75%. The editorial policy of the Journal assumes that the manuscripts sent for publication do not contain large unprocessed fragments of the text previously published by the Author. Manuscripts with originality below 75% are not accepted for consideration or the issue of their publication is decided on an individual basis.

4. All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are sent for review to one of the permanent reviewers or an independent expert, according to the profile of scientific research.

5. The review is conducted anonymously for both the Author and reviewers (double-blind). The manuscript is sent to the reviewer without specifying the names of the authors and the name of the institution. Number of reviewers - 2. Duration of revision process - 4 weeks.

6. The Editorial Board informs the Author of the results of the review by e-mail.

7. If the reviewer makes a conclusion about the possibility of publication of the article and does not make significant corrections, the article is accepted for further work.

8. If the reviewer makes a conclusion about the possibility of publishing the article, but proposes to make corrections or additions, the Editorial Board sends the Author a review with a proposal to consider the recommendation of the reviewer in preparing a new version of the article or arguments to refute them. In this case, the Author must make changes to the last version of the article and send the corrected manuscript. The article revised by the Author is re-sent for review, in order to make sure that all the recommendations of the reviewer have been taken into account. After receiving a positive response from the reviewer, the article is accepted for further work.

9. If the reviewer makes a conclusion about the impossibility of publication of the article, the Author of the reviewed work is given the opportunity to read the text of the review. In case of disagreement with the opinion of the reviewer, the Author has the right to provide a reasoned response to the Editor. The article can be sent for re-reviewing or for approval to the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board or its authorized editor sends its response to the Author.

10. All manuscripts that have been reviewed are submitted to the Editorial Board, which decides on publication. After the decision to allow the article to be published, the Editorial Board includes the publication of the article in the publication plan.

11. The decision to publish a manuscript is made on the basis of its significance, originality, clarity of presentation and correspondence of the research topic to the direction of the Journal. Works in which the provisions of previously published articles are challenged are considered on a general basis.

12. The original reviews are kept in the Editorial office for 5 years from the date of publication of the reviewed article.

13. In the case of a decision to refuse to publish the article, its archival copy is deleted from all electronic media.

SECTION 6. ORDER OF PUBLICATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

1. According to the requirements of the Higher attestation commission, the priority for the Journal are postgraduate and doctoral works, the term of their publication depends on the expected date of thesis defense, which the authors must specify in the primary documents attached to the manuscript.

2. Some issues of the Journal are formed by the responsible editor.

3. All accepted articles are submitted to the scientific editor and proofreader. After creating the article layout and editing it, the mock-up article may be sent to the Author by e-mail. At this stage it will be possible to send comments on the text of the article. The author is obliged to send his/her consent to the publication or his/her comments within the time limits specified in the cover letter.

4. The Editorial office does not send the author's copy by mail or PDF of the article by e-mail, access to the published numbers is open.

Subscription to the printed version is carried out for half-year (through subscription agencies).

SECTION 7. AFTER PUBLICATION IN THE JOURNAL

1. Information about the publication of the article is distributed on the following scientific citation databases: RSCI (within the framework of the RSCI platform), CYBERLENINKA and others. The article is assigned a DOI index and the full text is publicly available on the Journal's website.

2. Information about the publication of the issue is distributed through the newsletter of the Russian Journal of Church History (release) and in social networks.

3. We expect authors to participate in the dissemination of information about publications through personal pages on the Internet, such as profiles in ORCID and ResearcherID systems, as well as other similar systems.

SECTION 8. REVOCATION OR CORRECTION OF PUBLISHED ARTICLES

A full description of the journal's policy on the withdrawal and correction of published articles can be found in the information section on the Journal's website. In the cases listed below, the Editorial Board is guided by the COPE Recommendations issued by the Committee on publishing ethics (COPE) – http://www.publicationethics.org.uk 

Editors should consider retracting a publication if:

 • They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)

• It constitutes plagiarism

• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)

• It contains material or data without authorisation for use

• Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy)

• It reports unethical research

• It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process

• The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

Notices of retraction should:

• Be linked to the retracted article wherever possible (ie, in all online versions)

• Clearly identify the retracted article (eg, by including the title and authors in the retraction heading or citing the retracted article)

• Be clearly identified as a retraction (ie, distinct from other types of correction or comment)

• Be published promptly to minimise harmful effects

• Be freely available to all readers (ie, not behind access barriers or available only to subscribers)

• State who is retracting the article

• State the reason(s) for retraction

• Be objective, factual and avoid inflammatory language.

Retractions are not usually appropriate if:

• The authorship is disputed but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings

• The main findings of the work are still reliable and correction could sufficiently address errors or concerns

• An editor has inconclusive evidence to support retraction, or is awaiting additional information such as from an institutional investigation (for information about Expressions of Concern see https://publicationethics.org/expressions-of-concern-forum-discussion)

• Author conflicts of interest have been reported to the journal after publication, but in the editor’s view these are not likely to have influenced interpretations or recommendations or the conclusions of the article.

SECTION 9. JOURNAL POSITION ON ELECTRONIC BACKUP (IF THE JOURNAL IS NO LONGER PUBLISHED)

The purpose of backup is to prevent loss of information in case of hardware, software failures, critical and crisis situations, etc.

The following main categories of information are backed up:

• personal information of authors (personal directories on file servers);
• pdf of published articles;
• information about literary references to the article in the DOI system.

All this information is publicly available in the system of the Electronic library website www.elibrary.ru and NEIKON.

SECTION 10. INFORMATION ABOUT SUBSCRIBING TO THE JOURNAL

Information about subscription types is placed on the Journal's website in the "Subscription" section (https://roscardio.ru/subscription).

SECTION 11. CONTACT INFORMATION

Contact email address of the Editorial office – journal@churchhistory.ru

The name of the journal in English: Russian Journal of Church History, abbreviated name: Russ J Ch Hist.

Official site, where information about the Journal is posted: www.churchhistory.elpub.ru

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The manuscripts are accepted if has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

2. The materials should be prepared in a format OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or World Perfect.

3. Internet links are provided as a complete URL.

4. Text should be typed with an interval of one and a half line spacing, font Times New Roman, 12 pt; to highlight the accents it is recommended to use italics rather than underlining (except Internet links).All images, graphics and tables are placed within the text according to the meaning of the particular part of text (and not at the end of the document).

5. Text should follow the stylistic and bibliography requirements as stated in Regulations located in the Part "About Us."

6. Please, remove the authors' names from the title of the article and other parts of the document to ensure the anonymity of reviewing.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

Specified when registering the names and addresses will be used solely for technical purposes of a contact with the Author or reviewers (editors) when preparing the article for publication. Private data will not be shared with other individuals and organizations.