Православная миссия в Таиланде в 1999-2014 гг. - страница 2

The translation will allow more Thais to get acquainted with the teachings and the history of the Orthodox Church.

The degree of knowledge regarding the modern history of Orthodoxy in Thailand is insufficient for the present. Nevertheless, it must be mentioned from the available research, the work of the Archimandrite Oleg (Cherepanin) “The History of Christianity in Thailand”2 . In the introduction to this monograph, containing in addition to the research publications of archival documents of the Representation and photos, J.V. Maximov3 noted:

2 Oleg ( Cherepanin ), the Abbot, History of Christianity in Thailand. Bangkok, 2008. 238 p.

3 Yrii ( Georgii ) Valeryevich Maximov – the orthodox Deacon, the candidate of theology, the writer, the theologian and the publicist, the missionary, the lecturer of the Moscow theological Academy.

“Coming to Thailand, the Father Oleg sincerely loved Thais, so it is no surprise the desire, emerged by him, to share his faith with them. <…> But it was necessary that the witness of the Orthodoxy was adequate, and for this purpose it was necessary to find out how the former Christians of other denominations, Catholics and Protestants, were talking about the name of Christ in Thailand, what difficulties they faced, and how they had decided in what they succeeded and in what was their failure, and, most importantly, how did Thais accept the Gospel over the past three centuries”4. Thus, the recent history of the mission is discussed in the book only to a small extent. In addition, the very year of its publication (2008) shows that developments in recent years could not be taken into account. The book and materials of the Archimandrite Oleg (Cherepanin) became the basis for two dissertations on the history of Thailand: one of the Archpriest Daniel Vanna “History of Christianity in Thailand”, protected by him after graduation from the faculty of foreign students at the St. Petersburg`s theological seminary5, and one of Yevgeny Petrov, “The History of Orthodoxy in Thailand”, defended in 2011 at the theological Seminary6 in Tomsk.

4 Oleg ( Cherepanin ), the Abbot, p 3.

5 Vanna D. History of Christianity in Thailand. The thesis of a student of the faculty of foreign students at the St.Petersburg Theological Seminary, Saint-Petersburg, 2008. 239 p.

6 Petrov E. The History of the Orthodoxy in Thailand. The thesis of a student of the 5th course of the Tomsk theological Seminary. Tomsk 2011. 73 p.

We know the book of Jesse Russell and Ronald Koch “Orthodoxy in Thailand”7, that, although released in 2013, has no independent research values, being based on publicly available materials of the mission.

7 Russel D., Koch R. Orthodoxy in Thailand. The publisher VSD, 2013. 109 p.

A source base for the study were the archive materials of the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Churchin the Kingdom of Thailand8; the newspaper “Orthodox Thailand”; an interview with the Archimandrite Oleg (Cherepanin), including available online Internet9; the information and news about Orthodoxy in Thailand, also presented in the Internet ( First of all it is necessary to mention the materials from the site “Moscow Patriarchate, The Orthodox Church in Thailand”10, which contains many important documents including the report on the activities of the Representation, the own observations of the author, expressed earlier in his interview11). The author participates in the life of the Representation since its creation in 1999. In this respect, the narrator is, of course, an interested person, but nevertheless, the present study seeks for the maximum degree of objectivity.