Office of the Institutions of Empress Maria
The Office of the Institutions of Empress Maria was the name of the Imperial government office of charity in Imperial Russia, and the 4th branch of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery between 1828 and 1917.
The office was named after Empress Maria, who united her management of the Moscow Orphanage with that of the orphanage and the Foundling Hospital of St. Petersburg on 2 May 1797. The institutions managed
orphanages, care of the invalids, the blind and the deaf, education for women and children, poor houses and hospitals, many of the institutions founded by the Empress.
After Empress Maria's death in 1828, it was incorporated into the office of the Tsar and given the above name in 1854. The office was abolished in 1917, the year when the Russian Empire ended.
