An Overview of Chinese Historiography of the History of the Russian Orthodox Church

Abstract

The Russian Orthodox Church has been associated with China since the end of the 17th century, but the systematic study of the history of the Orthodox Church in Russia by Chinese scholars began only in the 1980s. This article examines the development of this field of research over the last 40 years. The author proposes to divide this process into 2 chronological periods: an initial stage and a stage of rapid development. The article summarizes in detail the results achieved by Chinese scholars in this field and briefly introduces the characteristics of the two stages. It is concluded that in the first stage (1980-2000) the works of Chinese scholars were introductory and descriptive, with the main purpose of understanding the Russian Orthodox Church as a whole. In addition, due to the special nature of political relations between China and the Soviet Union in the last century, the views of Chinese scholars of the first stage were strongly influenced by Soviet scholars. In the second stage (2001—present) Chinese scholars have greatly widened the perspective of their research, studied specific issues in greater depth, put forward more original ideas and achieved fruitful results. It should also be noted that there are still problems such as insufficient use of primary historical materials, over-concentration of research topics, and relatively weak research power, and its solution requires the joint efforts of scholars in the field.