Russian Orthodoxy once had a strong foothold among Russians living in China’s borderlands
of Ergun, about 60km from China’s border with Russia, the feast of Pascha last month was one that Father Pavel Sun Ming will long remember. Because of covid-19, he could not open his Eastern Orthodox church for celebrations of Christ’s resurrection. Police wearing surgical masks stood outside, stopping passing cars to check people’s health. But it is last year’s Pascha in Ergun that will go down in history.
Before the Communist takeover, Russian Orthodoxy had a strong foothold among Russians living in China’s borderlands. They married local Chinese, but some of their descendants, such as Father Pavel and Father Alexander, kept up the faith. These days few of the 15,000 Chinese citizens of Russian ancestry speak Russian or even look like their Russian forebears. But the government regards them as members of an ethnic minority group. It calls them Russians.
The revival of these four, after the dark days of Mao, has not been easy. The government recognises five religions. These are Buddhism, Daoism, Islam and two strands of Christianity: Catholicism and Protestantism. Orthodoxy operates in a grey zone, assigned to none of these. But along with the rapid improvement of Sino-Russian relations since the 1990s, China’s government has fostered stronger unofficial contacts with its giant neighbour, including in the religious realm.
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