Борьба с христоверами в полосе отчуждения Китайско-Восточной железной дороги

Диалог со временем. 2025. № 90. С. 281–295.

Rodionova K.

The history of Crist-believers in the Russian Far East and in the exclusion zone of the Chinese-Eastern Railway is practically an unknown page of religious life of the region. The article examines the attitude of the administrative structures of the region and the dominant Orthodox Church to the emergence of new religious groups in the Far East of the Russian Empire and in the exclusion zone of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in particular the struggle against the Crist-believers who lived at several stations of the railway. The study is based on the documents of the Vladivostok Ecclesiastical Consistory (from the collections of the Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East, Vladivostok), annual reports of two Far Eastern dioceses: the Blagoveshchensk and Vladivostok dioceses (Russian State Historical Archive, Saint-Petersburg) and the file of the criminal division of the First Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire (State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow), as well as numerous periodicals that covered the arrest of groups of Crist-believers in Manchuria. The methods of anti-sectarian work of the Russian Orthodox Church in the eastern suburbs of the Russian Empire are presented. The work shows the confessional policy in the Far East before and after the arrest of the Cristbelievers’ groups. The different approach of the state with a loyal migration policy towards Christian minorities and the active struggle against them by the Russian Orthodox Church were replaced by a unified wariness.

Keywords: religious minorities, религиозные меньшинства, Manchuria, Маньчжурия, Chinese Eastern Railway, КВЖД, Religious minorities in Late Russian Empire, Благовещенск, Северная Маньчжурия

Publication based on the results of: History and typology of communication in social, political and visual culture: global trends and Russian experience (2025)