DOI: 10.17916/p68c7c
title: MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN RUSSIA

description: The article discusses the missionary activities of the Orthodox Church in
 Russia. It has been revealed that the Christianization of the non-Russian
 peoples of Russia was a complex and controversial problem, since
 missionary activity affected the most important, defining aspects of the
 ethnos life, such as ideology, traditions, customs and way of life.
 Special attention is paid to the enlightenment of the Orthodox faith of
 many peoples of Siberia, who were representatives of various religious
 beliefs: paganism, Islam, Buddhism. To work with them, the Church
 developed a set of measures that contributed to the conversion of these
 peoples to Orthodoxy.  
description: When writing an article,
 the authors were guided by the principles of historicism, science and
 objectivity. In solving research problems, both general scientific methods
 (analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction, abstraction,
 concretization, idealization, generalization) and traditional methods of
 historical analysis (historical-genetic, historical-typological,
 comparative-historical, historical-functional). When collecting materials,
 the main role was played by the method of archival research.
description: <strong>I.
 INTRODUCTION</strong> Religious education and missionary activities have
 become an important activity of the modern Orthodox Church. The goal of
 the Church, according to numerous statements by Orthodox hierarchs, is the
 moral education of believers, their acquaintance with a rich religious and
 cultural heritage. In addition, new religious (or pseudo-religious)
 antisocial or extremist movements are prohibited. At the same time, however, the
 active implementation of Orthodox programs in the system of education,
 health, social security, in the army sometimes causes rejection by
 representatives of other faiths or non-believers. It is obvious that the
 activities of the religious, educational and missionary work of the
 Russian Orthodox Church in modern conditions should go without violating
 the rights of non-Orthodox citizens of the Russian Federation.
 <br>
 <strong>II. DISCUSSION</strong> In the last quarter of the 20th
 century, with a revival of interest in the Orthodox Church, as an
 important component of the history of the Russian state, scholarly works
 began to appear on its missionary activity.<br> In the works of N.
 Yu. Khrapov “The place and role of the Altai spiritual mission in the
 process of colonization and economic development of Gorny Altai,
 1828-1905” by W. Vanin on the topic: “The missionary activity of the
 Russian Orthodox Church in Northeast Asia from the Middle XVIII - the
 middle of the XIX century Razdolsky "Missionary activity of the
 Orthodox Church in the North Caucasus in the XIX - early XX
 centuries.". Ipatiev in his book "Missionary activity of the
 Russian Orthodox Church in the south of the Far East in the 19th - early
 20th centuries" emphasizes the positive role of elements of the
 missionary activity of the Church in the development of the social and
 political life of the peoples of these regions. In the last years of the
 20th century The Orthodox Church in such a multi-ethnic and
 multi-religious region as the Urals. In 1996, the international
 scientific-practical conference "Christian Missionary as a Phenomenon
 of History and Culture" was held in the central city of the Western
 Urals, dedicated to the 600th anniversary of the memory of the famous
 missionary and enlightener of Komi Stefan Velikopermsky. In the reports of
 scientists from Perm, Yekaterinburg and Moscow: N.A. Minenko, Chagina K.B.
 Kuzmina A.B. Chernykh, E.G. Glavatskoy, A. Marchenko, Semenov and
 discussed in detail the history of the Christianization of the Urals in
 the XV - XX centuries. Missionary activities of the church in the period
 1905-1916. analyzed in the work of the church historian MG Nechaev. This
 author comprehensively investigated the missionary system not only in the
 “external” mission, aimed at attracting “foreigners” to Orthodoxy, but
 also in the “internal” mission, the object of which was Old Believers,
 sectarians, representatives of non-Orthodox: Catholics and Protestants.
 Nevertheless, the strengthening of missionary activity at the stage of
 1908-1914 is noted. through the involvement of ecclesiastical
 organizations: sober societies, fraternities, and circles of pious
 devotees. The
 overall outcome of the conference was the identification of the positive
 contribution of Orthodox missionaries to education and familiarizing
 Russian civilization with non-Russian peoples living in this territory:
 Udmurts, Mari, Komi, Perm, Khanty and Mansi, an active position of the
 Church in the public life of Russia.<br> A review of the
 historiography on this issue reveals the existence of a relatively small
 number of special studies of secular historians on the missionary
 activities of the Russian Orthodox Church. Only in the last quarter of the
 20th century, studies of Orthodox missionary work began to appear in
 different regions of Russia. However, to date, not a single special work
 on the history of the church has been published, devoted to Orthodox
 missionary work in the first third of the 20th century, in the period that
 is the boundary between the new and modern history of Russia.<br>
   <strong>III. RESULTS</strong>
 The idea of missionary
 work was one of the main ones in Christianity; the local clergy continued
 their diligent educational work among the pagans. Thanks to parish
 priests, there were frequent cases of the baptism of pagans.<br> The
 principle of tolerance was proclaimed in Russia, and at the same time
 there was a process of strengthening administrative and religious measures
 to involve "foreigners" in the Orthodox faith. This was
 expressed in the creation of instructions, rules that established the
 procedure for preparing pagans for the adoption of the Orthodox
 faith.<br> The main activities of the missions were conversion to
 Orthodoxy, the approval of new converts in the faith and their education.
 The brotherhood that existed in the missions expanded their fields of
 activity, such as health care, charity and research. Each mission had its own
 characteristics. The missionaries used various methods in their
 activities, such as conversation, preaching, and worship. For meetings
 with the indigenous population, they traveled to places of nomadism, in
 the summer by boat, in the winter by deer. The missionaries tried to take
 into account the psychology of the indigenous population, for example,
 used pictures from the New Testament during conversations. The teaching method is
 widespread. Several schools were created for Aboriginal children, and
 after graduation, some graduates continued their studies in secondary
 schools. Pursuing enlightenment, the missionaries hoped that the children
 would become agents of the ideas of Christianity, but in general this was
 not achieved. Missionaries translated books into Aboriginal languages,
 which largely contributed to the emergence of national writing. In
 addition to liturgical literature, they created the alphabet,
 dictionaries. The first museum and libraries were created, the children of
 the Russian population studied in schools with the children of the
 aborigines. Cultural and educational activities of missionaries
 contributed to raising the educational level of the entire population of
 Russia.<br> Activity in missions, the appearance of positive results
 in the circulation and approval of new nations depended to a large extent
 on the personality of the missionary. There are several names of
 missionaries who worked in the XIX - early XX centuries. in Northwestern
 Siberia and who made the greatest contribution to the development of
 missionary work. This is Archimandrite Arseny, rector of the Kondinsky
 Monastery; Archpriest Peter Popov, who served in the Obdorsk mission;
 Igumen Averky, head of the Obdorsk mission, previously served in the
 Kondinsky monastery; member of Obdorsk mission, teacher, translator I.
 Egorov. Hegumen Irinarkh, rector of the Obdorsk mission, who was called
 the educator of the North, is especially worth noting. He earned the
 respect and gratitude of not only his contemporaries, but of all
 subsequent generations of the inhabitants of Obdorsk North. As a result of
 the missionary activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in North-Western
 Siberia in the XIX - early XX centuries. It was possible to convert the
 Ugrians, Selkup, part of Obdorsk Khanty and Nenets to Christianity. In our
 opinion, the number of converts to Orthodoxy is a formal result that
 cannot serve as an indicator of the success or failure of
 missionaries. The real result was as follows: at the beginning of the
 20th century, most of the baptized Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Selkup were
 Christians “by name only”. Christianity influenced the religious beliefs
 and traditional rituals of Aboriginal people in North-Western Siberia. In
 the process of the penetration of Orthodoxy, religious syncretism or dual
 faith developed. Elements of Christianity manifested themselves in the
 external attributes of the cult, in the inner, spiritual world of the
 indigenous population. In many Aboriginal groups, baptismal, wedding, and
 funeral rites appeared. In general, the Aboriginal family ritual has
 retained its traditional features.<br> Missionaries sought reasons
 for the failure to spread Orthodoxy among Aboriginal people due to lack of
 financial support from the state, the lack of a permanent policy of
 spiritual authority on the ground, the lack of missionary personnel, a
 lack of knowledge of indigenous languages, a weak missionary initiative,
 etc. We believe
 that the reasons for the low efficiency of the missionary activities of
 the Russian Orthodox Church among the Khanty, Mansi, Nenets and Selkup
 groups were that their traditional beliefs corresponded optimally to their
 way of life.   <strong>IV. CONCLUSION</strong>
 Thus, the various
 historical periods of the missionary work of the Russian Church were
 characterized by the strengthening of the integration function of the
 missionary activity of the Church, the high degree of activity of the
 Orthodox population in religious, educational, social, charitable
 activities of all faiths in Russia. All these factors indicate an increase
 in the real status of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian
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