The issue of the Russian Catholic community of the Byzantine rite in China, which is expressed in an organized administration in the form of an exarchate contains a special layer of religious, cultural and national elements. It includes self-identification with the Catholic Church, recognition of the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, while preserving the Byzantine-Slavonic rite of worship. This community played a significant role in the social and cultural life for Russian emigration in Harbin, enabling the development of a full-fledged spiritual life of Russian, Belarusian, and Polish Catholics. Harbin’s Exarchate left its mark on the history of both the Catholic Church and the formation of Harbin’s image, most notably through the cultural, educational, and charitable efforts of Russian emigrants. The article attempts to systematically analyse and reconstruct the history of the Exarchate of Russian Catholics of the Byzantine-Slavonic rite in Manchuria based on the surviving archival data and documents of the Catholic Church, as well as scientific literature which touches upon this issue in one way or another.
Key words: Roman Catholic Church, exarchate, Byzantine rite, emigration, religious landscape, Harbin, Manchuria, China, Russia
DOI: 10.22250/2072-8662-2024-3-18-31
About the author
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Nikolai V. Chirkov – religious studies scholar, PhD, Associate Professor at the Institute of St. Tomas Aquinas (Žilina, Slovakia), Department of the Pontifical Salesian University (Turin, Italy); Head of the Frontier Research Laboratory, Amur State University (Blagoveshchensk, Russia); 27 Sebastiana Caboto str., Torino, 10129, Italy; сhirkovniko@gmail.com |