The image of the Russian clergy in the works of A.P. Chekhov

The study is devoted to the consideration of the images of representatives of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church in the artistic work of A.P. Chekhov. The relevance is due to the problem of rejection of society from the Church in the second half of the XIX century. The purpose of the study is to show the features of the image of church life in the works of art by  A.P. Chekhov. With the help of tables, the types of clergymen and their assessment by the writer and his characters are demonstrated. The relationship between secular society and the clergy that developed in the second half of the 19th century is considered. In the writer’s work, it is impossible to single out negative, positive or transitional types of clergy, since often the assessment of one or another clergyman by one of the characters and/or a group of persons in the narrative is subjective, which cannot be said about the narrator, whose assessment is often positive and sympathetic. The conclusions made by protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann in a lecture recorded on audiotape in the 1970s are analyzed and substantiated. in San Francisco. It is concluded that only  A.P. Chekhov in the second half of the 19th century managed to truly discern and depict in Russian fiction a “living” priest with his essence: the inner spiritual world and relationships with others.