Missionary Activity in the Province of the Don Cossack Host as a Factor of Expanding the Sphere of Infl uence Among the Don Kalmyks and the Old Believers (1880s–1890s)

Missionary activity since the late 1860s had become one of the areas to which the imperial government attached great importance and initiated its development. The purpose of this article is to actualize, based on a set of sources, the problem of implementing the task set by the government of the Russian Empire of bringing religious “divergences” to maximum monoreligion through missionary activity entrusted to the Russian Ortho dox Church.
For the wide dissemination of the mission, under the leadership of the Council of the Missionary Society, established in 1870 in Moscow, committees of the Russian Orthodox Church in each diocese were opened. In the Province of the Don Cossack Host, such a committee was one of the fi rst to begin its activities. Until 1877, its spheres were defi ned as conducting a mission among the Don Kalmyks and among the Old Believers. From 1877 to 1879, missionary activity was limited to fundraising. On May 5, 1879, the Don department was headed by Archbishop Mitrofan (Vitsinsky), on whose initiative the activities of the committee were distinguished by a formal approach and limited to the purchase of books for the missionary library. In 1880, on his initiative, a shelter for Kalmyk children was opened. On December 5, 1887, Archbishop Makariy (Mirolyubov) was appointed to the Don department, whose activities demonstrated a lack of understanding of the goals and objectives of the missionary movement. According to the will of the Archbishop, the activities of the Don Committee were focused exclusively on the mission among the Kalmyks, ignoring
both the need for missionary activity among the Don Old Believers and among sectarians.