Projects of Organizing and Reforming Orthodox Missions in Tobolsk North in 19^th — Early 20^th Centuries

Abstract

The projects for the creation and reform of the Orthodox anti-pagan missions of the Tobolsk North in the 19th — early 20th centuries are discussed in the article. It is noted that the secular and spiritual authorities considered the Christianization of the indigenous population of the region as a mechanism for integration into the space of Russian civilization in the socio-cultural, administrative and economic spheres. It is concluded that many proposals for improving the work of missions were of a complex nature and involved a series of different, in general, very effective measures, such as centralizing the management of missionary affairs, in-creasing the status of the head of the mission, organizing systematic training of Ob Ugric and Samoyed children in schools, expanding the scope of mission by organizing new camps, increasing funding, attracting the most prepared representatives of the black and white clergy to the preaching of the “word of God”, as well as the bourgeois, Cossacks, and Zyryans living in the north. However, it was not possible to bridge the distance between the understanding of the mechanisms for solving the tasks facing the missions and their practical implementation. The lack of systematicity in work, the great influence of the subjective factor associated with the position of individual diocesan bishops, the unresolved personnel issue, hindered the establishment of the activities of Orthodox missions.

Keywords

• russian orthodox church
• missionary work
• western siberia
• tobolsk north
• obdorskaya mission
• kondinskaya mission
• surgut mission