The Synodic Library and Archive were established in St. Petersburg in 1721, when the Holy Synod was formed by order of Peter the Great. The printing house began its activity in 1711. The collection of manuscripts from the 14th to 19th centuries was formed through receipts from monasteries, churches, and libraries, as well as books seized from Old Believers and those that were not approved by spiritual censorship. This collection includes liturgical books, prayer books, historical texts, descriptions of closed churches and monasteries in 1763, and other materials. In 1839, the archive of the Synod was separated from the library and given to a special institution. In 1873, the Synodic library was transferred to the head of the archive. On June 1st, 1918, the archives of the Synod were incorporated into the Unified State Archive Holdings. Today, these materials, including the Synodic Library, are kept in the Russian State Historical Archive.
Handwritten books, mainly described by A. I. Nikolsky, constitute a separate holding No. 834. Electronic copies of a variety of documents are available in the collections of the Presidential Library.
The Patriarchal library traces its origins back to the Metropolitan "book treasury", but most manuscripts associated with saints from the 14th and 15th centuries have been preserved in various monastic collections, including those in the Kremlin. The main collection of manuscripts from the 11th to 14th centuries in the Patriarch's library is the result of a deliberate export of books primarily from Novgorod and Pskov, where ancient book culture was best preserved. The library contains Slavic and Greek manuscripts, as well as old printed books. Since 1920, the Synodic (Patriarchal) library has been housed in the State Historical Museum. In 1854, a small number of Russian manuscripts and old books were transferred to the Moscow Theological Academy and are now part of the Russian State Library's collection (holding no. 272).
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