Nikolsky Pavel (1870‒1942/43) – ecclesiastic historian, social activist. He was born in the family of a deacon.
After an ecclesiastic school, he graduated from the Tambov Ecclesiastic Seminary at the first rank (1890), and the Kazan Ecclesiastic Academy (1894) with a degree of Candidate in Theology. His Master thesis was ‘The History of the Voronezh Ecclesiastic Seminary’ (1900, Kazan Ecclesiastic Academy).
He taught ecclesiastic and biblical history at the Voronezh Ecclesiastic Seminary; since 1904, he has worked as inspector of church schools from the name of the Voronezh eparchy. He was a member of the regional statistic committee, one of the founders of the Scholarly archive commission; since 1901, he has worked at the Ecclesiastic Historical and Archaeological Committee. Since 1915, he has been Director of people’s schools of the Saratov Region. He got the rank of the State Council. After 1917, together with his family, he moved to Moscow. Up to the arrest in 1932, he worked at the People’s Commissariat of Finances. He was sent to the small town of Tutaev (Yaroslavl Region); he died in evacuation in Bashkiria (now Bashkortostan).
The main object of his research was the eparchial life, religious educations, monasteries and monasticism in the Voronezh Region. His works on ecclesiastic life (‘Letters on Russian Theology’, ‘Ecclesiastic and Social Life. 1905’, ‘Interests and Needs of the Eparchial Life’, ‘A Reference Book for Clerics of the Voronezh Eparchy for the Year of 1900’) are of certain interest.