Section of Archives of Churches and Religious Denominations
The Section of Archives of Churches and Religious Denominations, was established on September 14, 1995, in Prague, Czech Republic.
The aims of the Section complement those of ICA to provide a forum for education, advocacy, and the advancement of professional practice in the administration of archives and records.
Drawing on the contributions of archivists from the world's faith traditions, SKR seeks to advocate for access and protection of cultural resources critical to our understanding of world religion.
Within the general objectives of ICA as set out in chapter III of the Constitution, the aims of SKR are:
- to promote professional and scholarly co-operation and communication between the archives and archivists of churches and religious denominations in order to preserve their historical heritage and to allow access to them by users;
- to assist in the basic and continuing training of professional staff in charge of the archives of churches and religious denominations;
- to develop and disseminate standards for the preservation of the archival heritage of churches and religious denominations, and to develop special criteria for describing and processing them.
The Goals of SKR
The Section of the Archives of Churches and Religious Denominations is in the process of developing programs and goals for meeting the documentary challenges of religious organizations in the next decades. Specifically, SKR's purpose is to:
- Offer a discussion platform for archivists, users, and sponsors of archives of churches and religious communities at an international level;
- Work to establish archives of churches and religious communities around the world, with professional supervision and environmentally secure collections;
- Exchange information on issues of management, preservation, and access with a broad representation of members of different faith and from different regions of the world;
- Develop guidelines for the administration of archival holdings of churches and religious communities in order to secure their place as world cultural resources;
- Open further access to religious collections around the world and support the study of church and religious communities' history in the spirit of ecumenism and mutual tolerance;
- Represent the views and interests of archivists of religious collections within the ICA, especially in the quadrennial programs of the international congres.