The relevance of the problem under study lies in the fact that the cultural heritage has been and remains the determining factor for the preservation of national and cultural identity as the basis of national security. Scientific societies played a significant role in the protection of cultural heritage in that time. Hence, the purpose of the study is to determine the significance of the restoration theory and methodology of the Moscow Archaeological Society in a comparative aspect in the system of methods for preserving monuments as valuable phenomena. The source base of the article is, first of all, the minutes of both the general meetings of the MAO and its Commission for the Preservation of Monuments, as well as their annual reports. The publications of the authors on the problem being developed in the Antiquities of the MAO and Izvestiya IAK were also primary sources. The article is based on the principles of historicism, scientific objectivity, consistency. In addition to the general scientific methods used, the historical-comparative method is important, with the help of which different views on the problem were compared and conclusions were drawn. Among the scientific community, there was no unified approach in understanding the content of the restoration and the term, but, nevertheless, there was a closeness of views on the goals and objectives of the restoration, the stages of its process, the assessment of the significance of previous changes to the monument, the impossibility of recreating it in its original form, the definition of the original positions for a new restoration. The concept of archaeological restoration by the French scientist Viollet-le-Duc, based on the idea of creating an objective history, was used in Russia, taking into account the specifics of the country. Unlike modern restoration scientific principles of the 19th-early 20th centuries. were created in the context of practical tasks of archeology. The prevailing archaeological method offered to take into account the dynamics of the development of the monument, and to destroy later changes only if they lacked artistic and historical value. The stylistic method, in contrast to the archaeological method, is focused on restoring the appearance of the monument, which in principle is not very acceptable for the MAO. The restoration views of the members of the MAO N. V. Nikitina, V. I. Sizova, A. M. Pavlinova, A. P. Pavlova; representatives respectively of the IAK and the Synod P.P. Pokryshkin and Umetsky.
