Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Esta publicación cientíca en formato digital es continuidad de la revista impresa
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Vol. 41, Nº 76 (2023), 100-115
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
Missions of the Russian Orthodox
Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from
History to the Present
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.4176.05
Oleksandr Trygub *
Oleksandr Osypenko **
Mykhailo Fedorenko ***
Oleksandr Konotopenko ****
Abstract
The aim of the article was to determine the role of the missionary
activity of the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of its
historical-political development. The methodological basis of the
study meant a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach using
systemic, civilizational, historical-chronological and structural-
functional methods, as well as the method of comparative analysis
and institutional approach. The results obtained allow us to conclude that,
in the modern world, the Russian Orthodox Church has been noted for its
active participation in missionary activity, which has also set itself the goal
of spreading the ideas of the ‘Slavic’ or ‘Russian world’ among the peoples
of Asia and Africa. The spiritual values preached through the missionary
work of the Russian Orthodox Church, taking into account its contribution
to the Russian state and culture, are gradually becoming the basis for
popularizing the Russian national idea, which is dialectically positioning
itself as the main civilizational vector of the international policies of the
Russian Federation. Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church has a rather
strong inuence on the formation of the image of the Russian Federation
in the eyes of the world community, this is so, in part, due to its spiritual
missions.
Keywords: Russian Orthodox Church; Russian Federation; religion and
politics; missionary work; Orthodox mission.
* Doctor of History, Professor of the Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Petro
Mohyla Black Sea National University, Mykolaiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-
0610-1702
** Ph.D. in History, Deputy Director of Educational Scientic Maritime Institute of Humanities, Odessa
National Maritime University, Odessa, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1213-0481
*** Ph.D. in History, Associate Professor of the Department of Social and Humanitarian Sciences, Admiral
Makarov National University of Shipbuilding, Mykolaiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-
0003-1713-6492
**** Ph.D. in Philosophy, Associate Professor of Department of Legal and Public management, Vinnytsia
Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi State Pedagogical University, Vinnytsia, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.
org/0000-0003-3139-4527
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Vol. 41 Nº 76 (2023): 100-115
Misiones de la Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa como
herramienta de la diplomacia: de la historia al presente
Resumen
El objetivo del artículo fue determinar el papel de la actividad misionera
de la Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa en el contexto de su desarrollo histórico-político.
La base metodológica del estudio signico un enfoque interdisciplinario
integral que utiliza métodos sistémicos, civilizacionales, histórico-
cronológicos y estructural-funcionales, así como también el método de
análisis comparativo y el enfoque institucional. Los resultados obtenidos
permiten concluir que, en el mundo moderno, la Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa
se ha destacado por su participación activa en la actividad misionera, que
se ha jado además el objetivo de difundir las ideas del ‘mundo eslavo’ o
‘ruso’ entre los pueblos de Asia y África. Los valores espirituales predicados
a través de la obra misional de la Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa, teniendo en
cuenta su contribución al Estado y la cultura rusa, se están convirtiendo
gradualmente en la base para popularizar la idea nacional rusa, que se
está posicionando dialécticamente en el principal vector civilizatorio de las
políticas internacionales de la Federación Rusa. De modo que, la Iglesia
Ortodoxa Rusa tiene una inuencia bastante fuerte en la formación de la
imagen de la Federación Rusa a los ojos de la comunidad mundial, esto es
así, en parte, debido a sus misiones espirituales.
Palabras clave: Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa; Federación Rusa; religión y
política; obra misional; misión ortodoxa.
Introduction
Globalization and geopolitics require key players in international
politics to expand the use of foreign policy tools. Despite global trends
towards the secularization of modern society, the religious factor continues
to play an important role in it, increasing its inuence. This is because
of the increasing importance of cultural factors in shaping world politics
due to the emergence of a certain ideological vacuum after the crisis of
communism.
If during the Cold War the world was divided into ideological groups,
now other values are coming to the fore: the historical past of peoples,
religions, languages, belonging to certain cultural groups, nations, and
civilizations. Thus, the religious factor in the former ‘oasis of communism’
– the Russian Federation, acquired a new breath, which was lost after the
arrival of the Bolsheviks. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), as the
religion of the majority, began to play not only an important religious,
102 Oleksandr Trygub, Oleksandr Osypenko, Mykhailo Fedorenko y Oleksandr Konotopenko
Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from History to the Present
cultural and spiritual role in the life of the Russian state, but also a political
role.
To achieve its own foreign policy goals, many of which are intertwined
with state ones, the ROC uses a variety of tools. Among the latter, Orthodox
missions play an important role as a means of promoting the geopolitical
projects of the ‘Orthodox world’ and the ‘Russian world’. Thus, missions,
to a certain extent, contribute to implementing of the geopolitical plans of
the state. For example, the missions of the ROC, despite the specicity of
their functions and declared independence, are forced to take on a certain
burden in the work of the mechanism of foreign state activity.
In turn, the government of the Russian Federation supports these
institutions at the state level. There are indirect forms of state inuence on
programs carried out by religious organizations abroad, relying on which
the Russian Federation implements its pragmatic line outside the country. It
should be emphasized that most often this is precisely the indirect impact in
the form of tax benets to missions, protection under the slogan of the right
to freedom of conscience of the interests of specic missionaries or projects
carried out by them, pressure on the legislative institutions of the country
through international human rights and religious organizations in order to
change objectionable legal acts, etc. At the same time, the eectiveness of
such an impact is determined by the real political and economic potential
of the state.
1. Research Objectives
Noting the strengthening of the role of religious missions in modern
international politics, the authors are convinced that the Russian Orthodox
Church is also actively restoring the religious and political role in the
foreign policy of the Russian Federation. Thus, the purpose of the study is
to determine the role of the missionary activity of the ROC in the context of
its development.
Based on the goal, the following tasks need to be solved:
• to determine the features of the genesis and development of the
Russian Orthodox Church missionary activity;
• to characterize the main areas of activity of the Russian Orthodox
Church missionaries in the Russian Empire era;
• to consider the current state of the Russian Orthodox Church
missionary work;
• to identify the political aspects of the Orthodox missionaries’
activities.
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Vol. 41 Nº 76 (2023): 100-115
At the same time, the object of the study is the Russian Orthodox Church
missionary activity, both in the past and in the present.
2. Methodology of the research
Since the topic is historical and political science in nature, when writing
the article, the authors were guided by an interdisciplinary approach,
using both general scientic methods (analysis, synthesis, concretization,
generalization) and traditional methods of historical analysis (historical-
typological, comparative-historical, historical-functional), and the political
science tools (comparative analysis, theory of political systems, structural-
functional, etc.).
The fundamental principles of the study were historicism, scientic
character and objectivity.
Thus, the historical method made it possible to consider the stages
of evolution of the Orthodox mission in the Russian Empire, and the
chronological approach made it possible to x the sequence of evolution
of Orthodox missions in a time continuum; the structural-functional
method made it possible to study the Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission in
the complex of its fundamental principles; system analysis made it possible
to approach the subject of research in a complex and multidimensional
way, and to establish the relationship and interdependence of the studied
phenomena. An important place is occupied by the institutional approach,
since the Russian Orthodox Church is seen as a single institution, and the
mission is its element.
The use of this methodological tools made it possible to fully and
objectively to solve this problem.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. The historical tradition of using Orthodox missions in the
diplomatic activity of the Russian Empire
The history of missionary service gives us a good opportunity to trace
the formation of this type of activity, and to compare the characteristics of
missions that existed in dierent periods of social development. Thanks to
the missionary activity of the ROC, Orthodoxy has established itself among
many tribes and peoples living in its modern canonical territory.
Until 1917, this organization carried out its external mission among
the non-Christian peoples of the Russian Empire in Siberia and the Far
104 Oleksandr Trygub, Oleksandr Osypenko, Mykhailo Fedorenko y Oleksandr Konotopenko
Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from History to the Present
East, and outside the empire, in particular, in Japan, China, Korea, North
America, and Palestine. Most of the missions originated as diplomatic
missions of Russia, which we will try to consider using the example of some
ecclesiastical missions.
The creation of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in China was caused
by the needs of the Russian state in the development of relations with the
countries of the Far East. Ocially, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in
China was founded by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in
1713. The rst chairman of the Beijing Mission (1713-1717) was a Ukrainian
(a native of Chernihiv), a graduate of the Kyiv Theological Academy,
Archimandrite Ilarion (Lezhaiskiy) (1657-1717) (Pan, 2000; Medvedev,
2000).
The legal basis for the existence of an Orthodox mission in China (its
location, status, composition, content) was recorded in the Kyakhta (1727)
and Tientsin treaties (1858).
In 1864 the Mission was divided into ecclesiastical and diplomatic. Until
1858, the Mission was maintained at the expense of the Qing and Russian
states. After the conclusion of the Tientsin Treaty, funds were released only
from Russia (Shubina, 1998).
The functions of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing were as
follows: 1) religious propaganda (the activities of the mission to spread
Orthodoxy in China), 2) diplomatic (the mission played the role of an
unocial Russian diplomatic representation in China), 3) research (with
the activities of members of the mission great successes in Russian sinology
are connected).
From 1744 to 1864, the missionaries carried out instructions from the
Collegium of Foreign Aairs (since 1819, the Asian Department of the
Ministry of Foreign Aairs). All instructions, appointments, and transfers
in the mission were carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Aairs, informing
the Synod of its activities. The duties of the Russian resident in China were
performed by the head of the mission, archimandrite.
All members of the Mission (persons of the clergy, students, doctor,
painter) were to collect political, trade, economic and military information
about China. Special hopes were placed on the doctor and the painter:
Thanks to their work, the Mission can provide various services and favours to
Chinese dignitaries and other persons that we need, and mutually expect services
from them (Shubina, 2010: 190).
The methods of obtaining information were dierent and were of a
constant and objective nature: through acquaintance with inuential
people and ocials of the Tribunal, through bribery or intelligence under
the guise of spreading Orthodoxy.
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Of particular note are the activities of such missionaries as Avvakum
(Chestnoy), Guriy (Karpov), Palladiy (Kafarov), Polikarp (Tugarinov) and
diplomats: K.G. Krymskiy, A.A. Tatarinov. Returning to Russia, the former
missionaries served as interpreters for the Asiatic Department of the
Ministry of Foreign Aairs.
When in the middle of the XIX century England, France and the United
States sent their residents to China, then Russia did the same in 1860. And
then the question arose about the division of the spiritual and diplomatic
functions of the mission.
From 1864, the Mission was engaged exclusively in ecclesiastical aairs
and gradually ceased to play a political role, although Russian ambassadors
and diplomats continued to use the Mission’s connections in China (Trygub,
2015).
The mission was closed in 1954, ve years after the Chinese Revolution.
At present, the Russian Federation Embassy in China is located on the
territory of the Mission.
In 1794, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in America was established.
The reasons for its emergence were the active development of merchants
and crafts in Alaska. In 1784, Grigoriy Shelekhov, founder of the famous
Russian-American Company, landed on Kodiak Island, on the southern
coast of Alaska in the Gulf of Alaska. One of Shelekhov’s ideas was the
spread of Christianity among the natives of the newly discovered lands.
He built a church on Kodiak Island, founded a school and personally
baptized many Aleuts. Subsequently, together with his companion I.
Golikov, he sent a petition to Empress Catherine II and the Holy Synod to
send missionaries to this region. The petition was granted, and a mission of
eight monks headed by Archimandrite Ioasaph (Bolotov) arrived on Kodiak
Island on September 24, 1794 (Grigoriev, 1988).
During the rst two years of their activity, the missionaries baptized
12,000 natives and built several chapels. In 1867 Russia sold Alaska to the
United States. An agreement was reached between the two states on the
recognition by the United States of the property and rights of the Russian
Orthodox Church in the territory of Alaska. In 1870, the Holy Synod created
a separate diocese of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
As a result, a separate Orthodox church structure was organized and
brought to the threshold of the New World, and after the separation of
Alaska from the Russian Empire, it took root there. Over the course of its
short history, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in America managed to
expand in Alaska not only the inuence of the Russian Orthodox Church,
but also the inuence of the Russian state.
106 Oleksandr Trygub, Oleksandr Osypenko, Mykhailo Fedorenko y Oleksandr Konotopenko
Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from History to the Present
Ecclesiastical Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church were also
opened in Korea and Japan in the second half of the 19th century.
After the signing of the Russo-Japanese Treaty of Shimoda on February
7, 1855, Japan opened its doors to Russia. According to the Shimoda Treaty,
a consulate was opened in Hokkaido, and Russian ships received the right
to enter the ports of Shimoda and Nagasaki. According to the Edos Treaty
1858, a permanent Russian diplomatic mission began to operate in the
Japanese capital.
In 1859, the rst Russian consul in Japan, I.A. Goshkevich requested the
Holy Synod to appoint a new priest to the church in Hakodate (Hokkaido
Island). He could be useful not only for his ecclesiastical activities, but also
for his scientic work (in addition to missionary work, the priest had to
perform reconnaissance and cognitive work – learn the Japanese language,
get acquainted with the history and geography of the Japanese islands,
understand the mentality of the Japanese, etc.).
Ivan Dmitrievich Kasatkin (1836-1912) was appointed missionary
priest, later – Hieromonk Nikolai. On July 2, 1861, he arrived in Hakodate,
where in the rst years he independently studied the Japanese language,
culture and life of the Japanese and dealt with organizational issues for
the opening of the Russian Orthodox Church. To 1870, the Orthodox
community numbered more than 4,000 people, and by 1912 – about 33
thousand people and 266 Orthodox communities.
On January 14, 1870, the Russian Orthodox Church decided to form the
Russian Ecclesiastical Mission. In 1872, the headquarters of the mission
was opened in Tokyo, where the rst Episcopal department of the Japanese
Orthodox Church was founded eight years later (Yakovlev, 2001).
1890s – early 20th century were the most fruitful years of the Mission’s
activity. Since 1882, when the seminary’s rst graduation took place, dozens
of well-educated young people have regularly poured into Japanese public
life. Many graduates of the seminary later became major translators and
laid the foundations of Russian studies in Japan. This was facilitated by
the fact that the mission sent the most capable students to continue their
education in Russia. Among the most famous are Konishi Masutaro, Nobori
Semu and others.
During the Meiji period, the school graduated about a thousand people.
Among them were the future professor of St. Petersburg University
Yoshibumi Kurono, the writer Goro Amada, the author of the Constitution of
1889 Takusaburo Goro, the mayor of Yokohama Kensuse Ando, the governor
of Osaka Nozomu Nakagawa, the Minister of Education Hichisaburo Hirano
and many others who inuenced all spheres of Japanese culture and, thus,
Russian impact on the Japanese government and society increased.
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At the beginning of the twentieth century in the seminary at the
Ecclesiastical Mission, they began to train military translators, graduating
annually from 5 to 10 people.
After the turbulent times of civil confrontation, the political role of
the Japanese Ecclesiastical Mission was completely lost, and after 1945 it
fell under the control of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
(ROCOR).
No less important for the development of the Far East was the
Ecclesiastical Mission in Korea, which was founded by the decree of
the Synod of July 2-4, 1897. This Far Eastern country received formal
independence from China under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, and
on October 12, 1897, the Korean king Gojong proclaimed himself emperor.
With the development of Russian-Korean relations, the need gradually
arose to create a church representation at the Russian diplomatic mission
in the country.
The task of the mission would include taking care of the Russian
Orthodox living on the Korean Peninsula, and missionary preaching among
the local population. Founded on the initiative of the Minister of Finance
S.Yu. Witte and nanced personally by Emperor Nicholas II, the Korean
Mission was supposed to ensure the political inuence of Russia in the
country through missionary and cultural activities.
In the middle of 1899, the rst employee of the Ecclesiastical Mission,
Hierodeacon Nikolai (Alekseev), settled in Korea. At the beginning of
January 1900, head of the Mission Archimandrite Khrisanf (Shchetkovskiy,
2012) arrived in Seoul, appointed by the decree of the Holy Synod of
September 7, 1899. On February 17, he consecrated the house church of the
Holy Martyr Nicholas the Wonderworker at the Russian embassy, in the
envoy’s apartment.
The new Mission did not yet have its own premises, and the Russian
envoy to Seoul, Aleksandr Pavlov, placed at its disposal the building of the
former Russian-Korean bank (Shchetkovskiy, 2012).
As a result, in the rst years of the Mission’s existence, it developed quite
rapidly and successfully. Chief Procurator of the Synod K. Pobedonostsev in
his report for 1900 stated with enthusiasm: “The success of the Orthodox
mission in Korea can now be considered quite assured… Orthodoxy here
can be established and spread…” (Pobedonostsev, 2003: 264).
The further military-political defeats of Russia in the Far East made
a cardinal impact on the development of the mission. After the defeat of
Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Russian political inuence
in Korea was almost completely lost, since in November 1906 this country
was forced to recognize a Japanese protectorate over itself, and on August
108 Oleksandr Trygub, Oleksandr Osypenko, Mykhailo Fedorenko y Oleksandr Konotopenko
Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from History to the Present
22, 1910, Korea was completely annexed. From 1906 to 1917, the Russian
colony in Seoul was limited to the consulate, Mission sta and about 10-20
merchants (Shkarovskiy, 2009).
The revolutionary events of 1917 and the further loss of ties with Russia
greatly complicated the activities of the Korean Ecclesiastical Mission,
which eked out a miserable existence. In those dicult conditions, there is
no need to talk about any political and religious inuence of the Mission,
although it became a refuge for many thousands of Russian emigrants in
Korea. The Mission nally ceased to exist during the Korean War (1950-
1953) (Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Korea, 2019).
The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, which was founded in
1847 and continues to operate to this day, played a great role in strengthening
the position of the Russian Empire in the Middle East. In 1847, Emperor
Nicholas I approved the foundation of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission
in Jerusalem, headed by Archimandrite Porriy (Uspensky). The Mission
worked in close cooperation with the Asian Department of the Ministry of
Foreign Aairs of the Russian Empire.
Over time, a number of new Russian institutions were founded in the
Holy Land, to which many of the initial functions of the Ecclesiastical
Mission were transferred. In 1856, an agency of the ‘Russian Society of
Shipping and Trade’ was established in Jerusalem, which carried out
the delivery of pilgrims from Russia. In 1858, the Russian consulate
was founded, which took over diplomatic functions. Thus, gradually the
interaction between the Russian consulate and the Ecclesiastical Mission
was reduced to almost zero. The Mission began to perform an exclusively
religious and ecclesiastical function.
In 1914 the First World War interrupted the activities of the Mission. In
1919, after the occupation of Palestine by Great Britain, the Russian monks
returned to Jerusalem, but communication with Russia was interrupted
and the Mission was deprived of the protection of the State, most of the
former sources of material assistance disappeared (Zaitsev and Lukyanov,
N.d.; Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, 2015).
Attempts by the Soviet Government and Moscow Patriarch Aleksey
I in the second half of the 1940s to revive the former role of the Mission
in Jerusalem in order to “increase inuence on the Eastern patriarchates”
(Shkarovskiy, 1999: 288) was unsuccessful. The reason for this was a sharp
drop in the interest of the USSR leadership in the foreign policy actions of
the Russian Orthodox Church in the Middle East.
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3.2. The Orthodox mission of the Russian Orthodox Church in
international relations at the present stage
The fall of the communist regime gave a ‘second wind’ to the missionary
tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, both internal
and external missions began to actively develop. According to the denition
of the Council of Bishops in 1994 ‘On the Orthodox Mission in the Modern
World’, in February 1995 a working group was formed to plan the revival
of the Orthodox mission of the Russian Orthodox Church in its canonical
territory.
After the development of the concept in December 1995, by decree of
the Patriarch and the determination of the Synod, a missionary department
was formed, headed by Archbishop Ioann. The tasks of the department were
determined by the provisions of the “Concept of the revival of the missionary
activity of the Russian Orthodox Church’; in accordance with the main areas
of activity in the department, sectors were created: information-analytical,
methodological, rehabilitation, apologetic and publishing” (Shkarovskiy,
2018: 84).
The last three decades have also signicantly intensied the missionary
activity of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. In many European
countries, the number of parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church has
increased several times, and in some places these parishes were created for
the rst time. For example, the presence of the ROC in Portugal, Germany,
Japan, China, South Korea, etc. has increased.
The most important task of the missionary strategy is to identify key
regions in the country where it is most expedient to conduct activities. It is
believed that the idea of key points and zones that allow controlling large
areas of space was introduced into geopolitics by military-strategic theories.
At the same time, long before its theoretical formulation by geopoliticians,
missionaries for many centuries built their work, basing it on a similar
principle.
Roland Allen, in his book ‘Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?’,
drawing on the experience of his predecessors, singled out this element
as one of the most important in missionary practice. In his opinion, even
the Apostle Paul founded his churches in places that were centres of world
trade.
These settlements were not only the centres of a certain territory, but
geographical points within a circle that outlined even wider areas that:
“represented something more than themselves, and peered into wider
distances than a provincial town, completely immersed in their petty
interests” (Allen, 1993: 35). This rule is recommended to be adopted without
hesitation, since it is part of the strategic plan ‘attack on the whole country’.
110 Oleksandr Trygub, Oleksandr Osypenko, Mykhailo Fedorenko y Oleksandr Konotopenko
Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from History to the Present
On a global scale, entire countries or regions of the Earth are allocated for
the implementation of large-scale missionary projects (Tromchuk and
Svishchev, 2000).
For the Russian Orthodox Church, Orthodox missions can introduce
into their civilizational territory international institutions that represent
Russian spiritual values. Missionaries not only spread religious views, but
also prepare the ground for territorial claims, changes in religious and
spiritual values and landmarks of the local community.
The religious factor can be actively used to try to join Russia with
territories that have little connection with the center. That is why missionary
work, as a phenomenon, for quite a long time was a way not only of church
preaching, but also of the development of new territories and their voluntary
bringing into the borders of Russia and the Russian Empire (Trygub, 2007:
80-81; Trygub, 2014).
At the same time, some researchers note a close relationship between
the political goals of a secular ruler and the activities of the Church.
Missionary work, which is a natural cultural and historical phenomenon,
is becoming one of the instruments of inuence on the political direction of
social transformations.
Based on the chosen methods of missionary activity (method of presence,
political approach, social evangelism, apologetic, ideological, nationalist
approaches, methods of counter-mission and false mission), in parallel
with the mission, certain foreign and domestic political goals of the state
can be carried out, the eectiveness of achieving which is directly related to
the eectiveness of activities missions (Isaev and Isaeva, 2013).
In the realities of the modern world, the most signicant goal of the
Orthodox mission is the preaching of the Gospel, which should lead not
only to the growth of adherents in the missionary territory, but also to the
possibility of creating a local church or diocesan unit. The implementation
of this goal not only expands the spiritual inuence of the ROC, but also
pursues political goals. As the modern researcher O. Tserpitskaya points
out:
Through the adoption of faith, people increase their desire to know the
country where this faith is widespread, to familiarize themselves with its culture
and history. Thus, the number of supporters of a particular country (in our case,
the Russian Federation) is growing, its Diaspora is being strengthened, and, given
modern political traditions, favorable ground is being created for lobbying its
interests (Tserpitskaya, 2010: 84).
Achieving the goals and objectives set for the Orthodox mission is
achieved by a certain set of methods that are used by missionary institutions.
Methods can be classied as follows (per O. Tserpitskaya):
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1. incarnation approach: the use of the local language and the
ordination of representatives of the local population;
2. method of presence: arranging one’s life among the indigenous
(non-Christian) population and inuencing it by personal example;
3. political approach: reliance on the support of State Power (it is
extremely rare in its pure form);
4. “Social evangelism” (“social evangelization”) (Tserpitskaya, 2010:
85).
We are primarily interested in the political approach, which is used both
in the domestic and foreign policy of the state. The political approach is
usually used in long-term projects of the state and is aimed, as a rule, at
strengthening its own inuence in a particular territory. In this regard, I
would like to give a denition of missionary work from the point of view of
the categories of geopolitics of Russian researchers M. Tromchuk and M.
Svishchev: ‘Missionary activity is one of the forms of exercising civilizational
control over space.
The missionary creates not only a new cult, he changes the mentality
of the people’ (Tromchuk and Svishchev, 2000). Thus, missionaries
and missions are given an important place in the implementation of the
geopolitical plans of states in the direction of spreading their civilizational
inuence.
If we consider the modern ‘geography’ of the opening of churches and
missions of the Russian Orthodox Church in the world, then, apparently,
it is appropriate to talk about the continuation of traditions: in almost
every state where the Russian Federation had one or another diplomatic
mission or at least foreign policy interest, the Moscow Patriarchate opened
its representation, activating the missionary role. It should be noted that
almost all foreign institutions of the ROC work according to a single scheme,
taking into account the national characteristics of the host countries.
Among the priority regions of Orthodox messianism are Africa, Asian
countries, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand. At the
same time, it is necessary to make a reservation that the ROC cooperates in
this direction with other Orthodox patriarchates.
Orthodox missionaries achieved the greatest success on the African
continent. To date, more than 1,000 churches have been built here and the
number of Orthodox is approaching 7 million, of which the vast majority
are newly converted indigenous people. For example, in Tanzania alone,
over the past six years, 70,000 people have converted to Orthodoxy.
Active actions are being carried out in the vast majority of countries, with
the exception of Muslim North Africa, where the preaching of Christianity
112 Oleksandr Trygub, Oleksandr Osypenko, Mykhailo Fedorenko y Oleksandr Konotopenko
Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from History to the Present
is either outright prohibited or severely limited. The strongest communities
are in Kenya (where there are already 1 million Orthodox), Tanzania,
Uganda, Congo, Cameroon and Madagascar, in some other countries the
mission is just beginning. Most of the missionary work is done by local
priests.
At the beginning of the XXI century. the territory of the Far East began
to return to the sphere of interests of the ROC: Japan, Korea, China,
Mongolia. But here, despite the successes of Russian Ecclesiastical Missions
at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Orthodox mission faces many
diculties associated with political obstacles from national governments.
Thus, only 15,000 Orthodox people live in the China, but there is not
a single priest, since the leadership of the China prevents this. At the same
time, missions in Thailand, Taiwan and a number of other territories are
operating unhindered (Maksimov, 2013).
Although the number of converts here is not as huge as in Africa, it is
the countries of Asia that are now becoming the region where the Orthodox
mission is developing more and more intensively, which is also connected
with Russia’s geopolitical interests in the Asia-Pacic region.
Orthodoxy is actively strengthening its position in Central America right
now. Orthodox churches appeared in Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas, Belize, the
Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and other States. The most striking event
took place in Guatemala, where in 2009 a denomination of 200,000 people
joined Orthodoxy (Maksimov, 2013). At the same time, there is almost no
Orthodox mission in South America.
Some missions of the Russian Orthodox Church (in this case, we are
talking about the Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem) also take over some
of the diplomatic functions – protecting the interests of citizens of the
Russian Federation who come to Israel as pilgrims. The territory of the
mission often acts as a shelter, and a consulate, and a spiritual center.
Providing assistance to those citizens of Russia who have diculties
with the ocial representations of Russia (delay in documents, for
example), spiritual representations take on part of the consular functions,
without requiring, and importantly, funds from the state budget, since their
nancing is carried out mainly through donations from believers.
Thus, all of the above shows that the missions and missionaries of the
Russian Orthodox Church play a certain role in the external relations of the
Russian Federation and can contribute to the conduct of Russia’s foreign
policy and take care of the stay of a part of Russian citizens abroad.
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Conclusions
The foregoing creates a general picture of the development of the
Orthodox missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church in the world
and allows us to trace the transformation of the main areas of activity of
missions: from caring for pilgrims and performing diplomatic functions
(during the heyday of the imperial era) to the struggle for the geopolitical
inuence of Russian Orthodoxy and the Russian Federation.
Summing up the historical development of the Orthodox missions of the
ROC, it can be stated that during their historical development, the Spiritual
missions of the ROC performed several tasks of both a religious and political
nature, namely: 1) spreading Orthodoxy to other peoples; 2) expansion
of the inuence of the Russian state; 3) performance of direct diplomatic
functions (protection of Russian citizens, representation of Russia’s
interests, intelligence, etc.). Thus, spiritual missions played a certain,
and sometimes very noticeable role in the development of international
relations between the Russian Empire and the Russian Orthodox Church.
In the modern world, the ROC has been noted for its active involvement
in missionary activity, which has set itself the goal of spreading the ideas of
the ‘Slavic’ or ‘Russian World’ among the peoples of Asia and Africa. The
countries of Western civilization – the European and American continents,
where the religious and political role of Russian Orthodoxy has acquired
more complex forms and is carried out through foreign diocesan structures
and representations – did not stay away from the missionary activities of
the Russian Orthodox Church (Trygub et al., 2022).
The spiritual values preached through the missionary work of the
Russian Orthodox Church, taking into account its contribution to Russian
statehood and culture, are gradually becoming the basis for popularizing
the Russian national idea, which is becoming the main civilizational vector
of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation.
The Russian Orthodox Church has a fairly strong inuence on the
formation of the image of the Russian Federation in the eyes of the world
community and to a large extent, due to its Ecclesiastical missions.
One of the options for missionary activity is a political approach (relying
on state power), but it is not the best, because it makes the church dependent
on state policy and hinders the realization of the church’s own interests in
the international arena. Therefore, today the most successful approach to
missionary activity (the use of the local language and the dedication of the
local population) seems to us to be the most successful, leaving room for
implementing certain state goals – social work (especially in ‘hot spots’),
the formation of a positive image of Russia abroad, participation in the
geopolitical projects of the Pan-Slavic World.
114 Oleksandr Trygub, Oleksandr Osypenko, Mykhailo Fedorenko y Oleksandr Konotopenko
Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church as a Tool of Diplomacy: from History to the Present
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Esta revista fue editada en formato digital y publicada
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Vol.41 Nº 76
