Intercultural Communication: Russian Orthodox Church in Yakutia (XVII–XIX Centuries)

Abstract

The research featured the issue of intercultural communication in the aspect of cultural and anthropological approach. The article introduces the case of the Russian Orthodox Church as it incorporated one of the remote outskirts of the Empire the Yakut region in Russia. The research was an attempt to understand the problems of intercultural communication during the intercivilizational interaction between the Orthodox (Christian) civilization and the local Arctic civilization of the peoples of North-East Asia. The author explained the permanent process of Christianization in Yakutia, as well as described the role of missionary work as a method of developing new territories and the specifics of parish activity. The relations with the nonOrthodox population improved when the state law replaced the traditional Patriarchal foundations, and representatives of non-Slavic elites entered the structure. The Orthodox Church conducted various social and educational activities, since it took secular social and educational state institutions a long time to reach this remote region. In the XVII–XIX centuries, the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church in Yakutia contributed to the intercultural communications with this marginal territory and ensured the involvement of the Yakut ethnic group in the Russian state space.