Two mass baptisms of Evenkil in Amur

Just this past week, fifty-eight members of the indigenous Evenki nation of the Russian Far East were baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church in Liturgies held in the Amur Oblast. According to the Diocæse of Blagoveshchensk, thirty-four Evenkil – mostly children – were baptised in the village of Bomnak by Fr Aleksandr Donesenko and his deacons, and a further twenty-four were baptised in the village of Zarya on the Chinese border by Igumen Antonii (Grishchenko).

What I wanted to mention here was this: Fr Aleksandr Donesenko brought with him to this Liturgy, the relics of Holy Martyr Boniface – whether the martyr of Tarsos or the martyr of Dokkum is not quite clear from the story – as well as a handpainted ‘Word Made Flesh’ icon of the Holy Theotokos of Albazin. In Zarya, the intercessions of Saint Innocent (Veniaminov) of Alaska were also asked, and his hagiography was distributed to the newly-illumined Orthodox believers after the Liturgy along with prayer-books and the Holy Gospels in the Evenki language.

If you will recall, gentle readers, Boniface was the name taken by the greatest of the Old English missionary saints to the Continent, in honour of the martyr of Tarsos at the insistence of Pope Gregory II. Also, if my gentle readers would be good enough to recall, the Albazinians whose protecting icon of the Holy Theotokos is housed in Blagoveshchensk, are the oldest continuous Orthodox community in China, having been captured by the Manchus and then offered positions as Manchu bannermen. The Albazinians are the ones who gave to us the two-hundred and twenty-two martyrs, including Priestmartyr Mitrofan (Chang) Yangji, of the Boxer Rebellion.

The Evenkil, the indigenous people of Siberia who are some of the last true heirs of the folk heritage of the Jurchen and Manchu peoples who once ruled the Jin and Qing Dynasties, are being amply blessed: by a sweet, loving and blessed English missionary of the chilly North Sea coast; and also by a great host of Chinese Orthodox witnesses to Christ!

The long-suffering Evenkil still face a great host of social ills. This is the same heartbreaking story of indigenous peoples everywhere. These ills are the result of private encroachments on their territory; of outright land theft; of repression of their national characteristics in favour of Russification or Sinicisation; of the steady erosion of communal land rights in the era of capitalism; of the gradual loss of their native language; of the increasing difficulty of maintaining their traditional œconomic life of reindeer herding and hunting. What hope there is for the Evenkil, lies in the current efforts of the Evenkil themselves to adapt to a hostile political climate. The Orthodox Church in Russia and in China must take it upon herself to – like Holy Father Herman of Alaska whose feast we celebrated this week, or like the former Saint Innocent in whose honour the missionary of Alaska was named – stand firm upon the communal rights and the well-being, both spiritual and material, of the indigenous peoples she serves, who now make up an irreplaceable and unrepeatable part of her body.

Holy Martyr Boniface, Holy Hierarch Innocent, Holy Priestmartyr Mitrofan and all the Chinese Martyrs, we ask your intercessions to Christ our God, and protection for the newly-illumined and for all the Evenkil people of Siberia and China!