On December 25, part of the Christian world celebrates Christmas. On this day, believers rejoice at the birth of Jesus Christ, open gifts under the tree, sing laudatory hymns, or simply gather with family and friends at the festive table.

Nevertheless, for many, Christmas is not only a family holiday, but also a “professional” holiday, for example, for the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. After all, the Catholic Church is an institution of colossal proportions, gathering under its auspices millions of people and directing tens of thousands of institutions. For priests, the bright holiday of Christmas means not only fasting and prayer, but also certain bureaucratic rituals.

We are told about this by a letter from the Archbishop of Westminster Henry Manning to Cardinal Luigi Pallotti (Archive of St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, WES, coll. 18, box 380, item 7), dated December 10, 1888, stored in the archive of St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The document consists of two sheets of paper, on which the filigree is clearly visible: a lion standing on two legs, with a scepter and the inscription “Joynson Fine”. Most likely, the paper was produced at the William Joynson factory, founded in 1850 and located in Saint Mary Cray (Kent). The text of the letter takes only the front side of the first page and, apparently, was written by the archbishop’s secretary. Cardinal Manning himself only assured the letter with his signature.

The exhibition was prepared by I.D. Travin

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