Today in Russian historical science there is growing interest in the study of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, its social policy and relations with state institutions. This article is devoted to the study of state and church policy in the field of women's education at the turn of the 19-20th centuries. The goal of the study was to consider the features of women's spiritual education and upbringing in the curricula of women's educational institutions of the Russian Empire. The article is based on sources of a regulatory and legal nature (charters, regulations, programs); church and secular periodicals of the 19th - beginning of 20th centuries. ("Astrakhan Diocesan Gazette", "Saratov Diocesan Gazette", "Journal of the Ministry of Public Education"); archival materials of the Russian State Historical Archive (Fund 802), the State Archives of the Astrakhan Region (Fund 639); as well as on the works of pre-revolutionary authors. The methodological basis of the study was the comparative-historical analysis of literature and sources, materials of the periodical press; generalization and systematization of the studied facts. The paper reveals the reasons (professional incompetence of teachers of religion, formal approach to teaching, lack of effective teaching methods) and problems (religious indifference, negative trends in the development of the feminist movement, features of the socio-cultural development of the Astrakhan province), which became prerequisites for the crisis of spiritual education and upbringing of women in the beginning of the 20th century.
