FATHER CHRYSANTH ON THE WAY TO THE KOREAN MISSION: LOCAL AND GLOBAL

Abstract

The article deals with the biography of Chrysanth (Shchetkovsky) — the head of the Russian Theological Mission in Korea in 1899–1904 — before he was sent to Seoul. The purpose of the work is to demonstrate the peculiarities of the formation of the Russian Orthodox missionary in the conditions of deepening problems faced by Russia at the final stage of its existence, and increasing confrontation between the great powers in East Asia. The novelty of the study is determined by the use of global microhistory methodology to analyze the biographical material, which allows us to consider the private life of a person as part of the global context and, at the same time, to assess the significance of the fate of an individual in the world historical space. Chrysanth’s turn to missionary activity was dictated, on the one hand, by pragmatic reasons connected with the death of his wife and the actual impossibility to remarry, which predetermined the impossibility to fully engage in parish work, as well as by the obvious predisposition of the future head of the Ecclesiastical Mission in Seoul to educational work. At the Kazan Theological Academy a thorough religious studies training was combined with a strong school of missionary and oriental studies. Predetermined the formation of Chrysanth as an “empire builder” and prepared him to work as an agent of Russian influence and missionary of the Orthodox faith on the Korean peninsula.