Review of the Pastoral Activity of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Beijing (The Second Half of the 19th - Early 20th Century)

Abstract

The article studies the place and role of the Russian Orthodox Mission as a tool of religious propaganda in China in the second half of the 19^th - early 20^th centuries. Heretofore, the primary goals were to fulfill the functions of the Russian diplomatic mission in China and to conduct research in the field of oriental studies and the natural sciences, which in its turn excluded the possibility of its missionary tasks. In the second half of the 19^th century the Russian Orthodox Mission had to transfer diplomatic and military intelligence functions to the Russian embassy in China that was opened in 1861. This circumstance forced the Mission to search for new directions of development and eventually focus on missionary work. The structure of the Russian Orthodox Mission was gradually transformed, adapting to the needs of pastoral activity. Its financial and material-technical base strengthened, the staff of missionaries expanded, the system of Orthodox parishes, church schools, monastery cloisters and courtyards become more complicated. In order to involve the indigenous people in the religious propaganda and to significantly increase the number of newly baptized Chinese, from the second half of the 19^th till early 20^th centuries the Mission developed the network of missionary offices, mills and schools in the six largest and densely populated provinces of central China. Despite the fact that the Mission worked in extremely unfavorable conditions, mostly caused by the political games of the great powers for influence in the Far East, Russian Orthodox Church achieved undoubted success. The growth of the Mission was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War, following a reduction in funding and a number of other circumstances. As a result, the activity of the Russian Orthodox Mission in China was gradually decreasing in 1914- 1917.