Official Visits of Russian Orthodox Church Eparchs to Asian Russia’s Dioceses Registered in Diocesan Bulletins in the Second Half of the XIX – early XX Centuries

As bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, metropolitan eparchs had to travel to distant parishes that were under their supervision. The author studied reports published in archival diocesan bulletins to identify the tasks they faced during their official visits and how they resolved them. The eparchs checked the condition of parish churches, revised clerical documents, and talked to parish clergy suspected of inappropriate lifestyle. Siberian dioceses had their regional specifics, and the eparchs had to supervise the church development in colonized areas, counteract schismatic sectarianism, and encourage missionary activities among the indigenous population. However, the most important task was to assess the religious and moral state of parishioners and to support them. To obtain an objective picture, the eparchs visited remote, sparsely populated villages. According to their early reports, most parishioners treated the faith and the church with due respect. At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, however, some parishioners were reported to skip confession. In small villages, both children and adults could not recite a simple prayer and failed to name the most basic canons of Christian Orthodoxy. In some villages, people showed complete indifference to the arrival of the eparch and demonstrated various vices. To exert moral influence on the parishioners, the eparchs held church services, distributed religious paraphernalia and literature, organized sermons, gave edifying and enlightening speeches, etc.