ACO Women in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Transitions and Persisting Patterns

After the independence of Syria and Lebanon Protestant missionary work in the Middle East changed dramatically. The women missionaries who worked in the service of the ACO had to come to terms with new realities such as the social and political turmoil of decolonisation, missiological shifts, and partnership agreements with the local churches. Drawing on written memoirs and oral history sources, this article explores their female agency and leadership in a changing context. It also analyses the perception of these missionaries by local agents.

Bishop Apollos (Belyaev) and Development of Vyatka Diocese in 1866—1885

Using mainly historical-comparative and historical-genetic methods, the issue of the development of the Vyatka and Slobodsk dioceses, which coincides within the borders with the Vyatka province, under Bishop Apollos (Belyaev), is considered in the article. The author pays special attention to the process of organizing religious, educational and missionary activities, and up to the appointment of Bishop Apollos, the results of this work were insignificant. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time it comprehensively examines the activities of the Vyatka Bishop Apollos in terms of the implementation of a nationwide religious course, which included active educational and missionary work of the local clergy. Under Bishop Apollos, to increase the influence of the clergy on the local population, including the Old Believers and non-Orthodox, important transformations were carried out: a separate vicariate was allocated in the diocese, the Vyatka Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society and the Vyatka Brotherhood of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker were opened, and the work of the local clergy was also generally reorganized. This gave the first positive results in strengthening the position of the Russian Orthodox Church among the local population of the Vyatka diocese.

Singing the “Wondrous Story” in Portuguese: The First Official Brazilian Baptist Hymnal, Cantor Cristão

This paper discusses the history of Cantor Cristão, the first official Brazilian Baptist hymnal, published in 1891, revealing important aspects of the development of Protestant hymnody in Brazil. It also exposes a web of long-distance connections, multiple linguistic and cultural elements, and distinct perspectives of those who chose to do missionary work and those who chose to welcome them. More specifically, I describe and reflect on the contributions of Solomon L. Ginsburg, an Orthodox Jew from Poland, converted to Christianity in England, and turned Evangelical missionary, who played a crucial role in the history of Cantor Cristão as publisher, author, and translator of hymns. In my analysis, I adopt a historical ethnomusicological perspective and utilize the concept of musical localization, as well as the complementary notions of negotiation of proximity and ethics of style as interpretative lenses. I am drawn to a more nuanced view of the legacy of the mission enterprise, one that is not blind to issues of power, ethnocentrism, and wealth, but makes room for a robust examination of all sorts of capital transfers and investments (economic, cultural, and social), and the real phenomena of musical localization and individual agency.

About Russian Alaska and Its Ruler A.A. Baranov

The purpose of this study is to analyze the present and past of the history of Alaska. Such a combination of times highlighted the most difficult problem of ambiguous attitude to the historical past in the USA from the standpoint of modernity. In the process of destroying monuments under the onslaught of the Black Lives Matter movement, the local Indian population accused the long-gone A. A. Baranov of racism, persecution of the indigenous population, enslavement of Tlingits and Aleuts for hunting fur-bearing ani-mals. On July 14, 2020, the Sitka town and district assembly supported these accusations and decided to move his monument from the town square to the local museum. The review article reveals the objective conditions of the historical process during the period of A.A. Baranov's activity in Alaska in 1790–1818, us-ing the methods of historicism, search and systematization of information, analysis and synthesis. The assessment of his personality is updated. The article shows the beginning of G.I. Shelikhov's and A.A. Baranov's activity in the North-Eastern Company, and then its transformation in 1799 into the Russian-American Company (RAC). The article examines the war with the Tlingit people of 1802–1804, the missionary work of Herman Alaskinskiy, three assessments of the nature of Russian colonization, N.P. Rezanov's plan for the modernization of RAC. The episode with Russia's sale of Alaska to the United States is also being clarified.

A Pitești-i Református Egyházközség első tíz évének demográfiai adatsorai a halálozási anyakönyvek tükrében

Demographic Data of the First Ten Years of Existence of the Pitești Reformed Church in the Light of the Official Death Registries. In the last three centuries, many Hungarians in Transylvania went to work and live in the southern part of the Carpathians. At first, they went just for seasonal work, but later they become permanent migrants. They founded new Reformed parishes and schools in the new locations. We have data on the population of Pitești from 1844, when Sándor Ürmösy described the ethnic and confessional composition of the town for the first time, and he mentions 1,500 Hungarians in Pitești. As result of the Reformed missionary work, the first Reformed churches were established in the most important towns of old Romania in the mid-19th century. The documents of those times reveal to us data on the demographic, confessional, and ethnic composition of the population. In this study, I attempted to find the most important data on the first ten years in the life of the Pitești Reformed community linked to its members’ age of death, cause of the death, and occupation. Keywords: mission, Pitești, Reformed Church, old Romania, official death registries

Missionary activities of the Russian orthodox church in Southeast Asia at the beginning of the 21st century

The article analyses the Russian Orthodox Churchs missionary activity of the in Southeast Asia, with a focus on its prerequisites and the stages of its development. ROC missionary work in the region could build on the experience of pre-revolutionary spiritual missions in Asia, as well as on the Orthodox communities of Russian emigrants after the revolution. Important factors are also the formation of the global labor market; international tourism; and the aspiration of compatriots living abroad to preserve the Russian World (Russkii Mir). The article analyses the Russian historiography of the missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church in Southeast Asia. With the establishment of the Patriarchal Exarchate in Southeast Asia in 2018, with its center in Singapore, a new stage of missionary activity in the region began. The establishment of the exarchate in Southeast Asia brought about the systematical management of the numerous Orthodox parishes that appeared at the turn of the millennium in this region. Relying on little-known and understudied historical sources, the authors identified the forms of missionary work in various countries and assessed the scale of activities in relation to the prevailing confessional traditions. This includes an analysis of missionary work in countries dominated by Buddhism (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos), Christianity (the Philippines), and Islam (Indonesia, Malaysia), with special attention paid to the situation in socialist Vietnam and multi-confessional Singapore. The authors conclude that the missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church in Southeast Asia has now passed through several stages from the emergence of the first Orthodox communities in the region to the formation of centralized structured management of the numerous new parishes, with missionary work conducted in ways that respond to the local characteristics.