Features of implementing the Russian Orthodox Church's missionary policy towards the non-Russian peoples of Vyatka Province in the second half of the 19th century

The article aims to single out and analyse the missionary activities of the Orthodox clergy of Vyatka Province in the second half of the 19th century. The spatial scope of the study is determined by the boundaries of the given region as of the specified period. The chronological framework of the study is due to the identified trend of intensifying missionary practice associated with the internal political processes of the post-reform era. The source base of the study was made up of various categories of historical sources. First of all, these are the acts of the Holy Synod, which make it possible to identify the directions of the state confessional policy in general. Documents of the Vyatka Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society contain rich factual material about missionary practice in a foreign environment. Clerical records tell about the milestones of the missionary service of specific priests. The characteristics of Vyatka Province as a region with peculiarities of national and confessional structure are recreated based on published statistical sources. Publicistic sources from the periodical Vyatskie eparkhial'nye vedomosti are of paramount importance in solving the problems of the study. The methodological basis of the study is the problem-chronological approach. In accordance with it, the starting point of the study was the characteristic of the ethno-confessional situation in Vyatka Province in its evolution: from the period of the appearance of the Slavic-Russian population in the region inhabited by ethnic Finno-Ugric peoples, pagans in terms of worldview, to ascertaining the facts of the ongoing assimilation in the 16th-18th centuries, which followed the path of forming a regional ethos on the basis of Orthodox values. The result of the study within the framework of the designated problem is the formulation of several specific areas of these activities. These areas include: creation in Vyatka Province, in the context of the general imperial trend, of Orthodox societies and brotherhoods; dissemination of education among non-Russian non-Orthodox peoples through the establishment of special foreign schools; creation of new church parishes in foreign villages; organization of regular monitoring by the Holy Synod of missionary activities; strengthening of informational coverage of missionary activities in the Vyatskie eparkhial'nye vedomosti periodical of Vyatka Eparchy. Based on the results of the study, the following conclusions were drawn: missionary work was carried out by various means; regional practice was in the context of national events; the state and the church spurred missionary activities when a threat to social stability arose from a number of post-reform populist organizations. It can be argued that the non-native population of Vyatka Province turned out to be receptive to the efforts of the Orthodox clergy, which became a kind of a social bond, uniting different nationalities into a single state entity.

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