Description

As the leading missionary in the region around Lake Baikal, Archbishop Veniamin of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk (born Vasilii Antonovich Blagonravov, 1825‒92) was a proponent of Christianizing the local Buriat people and promoting among them the culture and language of European Russia. Veniamin saw the baptism into the Russian Orthodox faith of the local population, who were mostly Buddhist, as critical for the Russification of Siberia. This essay, written about ten years into Veniamin’s ministry in Irkutsk, describes the situation for Christians in the area at that time. It ...