Propaganda of the Teachings of the Western Christian Churches in St. Petersburg in the first half of the 18th century

The paper presents the analysis of the Western Christian missionaries' activities, which took place in St. Petersburg in the first half of the 18th century and included propaganda of their doctrine among the city population. The work analyzes the legislative acts of the Russian government on restricting the priests' missionary activity (combating propaganda), considers the methods of propaganda and specific examples of its manifestation. The authors attempted to compare the Catholic and Protestant missionaries' activities in St. Petersburg. Having conducted the study, the authors concluded that despite the freedoms given to other faiths representatives, the government also built barriers to their teachings' propaganda among the autocracy subjects - the state naturally protected the official Orthodox religion, which formed the moral foundations and the main institutions in the society.