The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

The article examines the evolution of the concept of the missionary field from the standpoint of interdisciplinary analysis, using theological, historical and sociological approaches. A gradual transition from a naturalistic understanding of the field to an interpretation as a space of spiritual processes is shown. Since the second half of the 19th century, the literature on the experience of missionary service in various regions, including Transbaikalia, has increasingly referred to the “field of missionary activity”, and the mission analysis conducted at that time anticipates modern approaches to mapping the missionary field of the regions. The reports of pre-revolutionary missionaries contain descriptions of the geography of the area, ethnographic data, the history of religious institutions, the history and problems of the Orthodox mission in the context of all the highlighted aspects. In modern research, historical, cultural and sociological studies of regions are the boundary field where the interests of secular science and missiology converge. The concept of the missionary field is a concept that intersects with one of the central categories of modern religious studies: the “religious situation”. The missionary field is a religious situation perceived from the standpoint of pastoral responsibility in a given specific territory in a certain socio-cultural context. On the basis of the indicated theoretical approaches, the analysis of the missionary field of modern Buryatia is given. Statistical data, the results of sociological surveys of the population of Buryatia, as well as an expert survey conducted through a series of semi-standardized interviews were used as empirical data. The data of the expert survey made it possible to identify common and distinctive features of the missionary field in comparison with the missionary field of a number of other regions, both Asian and European. The missionary field of Buryatia appears as not evenly developed and complicated due to the centuries-old traditions of multi-confessionalism, but at the same time promising.