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The Russian Orthodox Mission in China had its beginnings with the capture of forty-five Russians when the Chinese Emperor Kangxi (Kang Hsi), of the Qing dynasty, captured Albasin, a Russian fortress on the Amur River. Among those captured was Fr. Maxim Leontev, an Orthodox priest. He was brought with the prisoners to Beijing late in the year 1685. There he settled in the ambassadorial quarters in the north eastern section of the city and served his small community for twenty years, using a converted Chinese temple as his [[chapel]]. The chapel was [[consecration of a church|consecrated]] to the [[Holy Wisdom]] of God. In 1695, Fr. Maxim received documentation from the [[Metropolitan]] of Tobolsk recognizing the consecration of the church and directed Fr. Maxim to commemorate the Chinese emperor and to begin preaching to the Chinese. Fr. Maxim reposed in 1712, thus ending his informal mission.
With Fr. Maxim’s passing, a formal Orthodox Mission was formed that acted as official representative of the Russian government. The activities of the mission were subordinated to the Russian government diplomatic and political interests This period lasted until 1860. During this period the composition and head of the mission changed about every ten years and was generally composed of four [[clergy ]] and six [[laymen]]. The laymen were usually students whose duty was to learn the Chinese and Manchu languages and then became interpreters and eventually consuls for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The mission was financed by and received direction from the government. This situation directly affected the [[missionary]] activities of the clergy. As the relations between Russia and China were defined formally, the work of each member of the mission was clearly defined. Under such circumstances, the missionary efforts of the Mission were greatly hindered and conversions, hence the number of baptisms was not significant.
Each change of the head of the mission has been identified serially. During the period to 1860 the number of changes was thirteen. Beijing being on the end of a long caravan route, communications with Russia were infrequent, only two to four times each year. This hampered the receipt of funds for the operation of the Mission.
Although hampered as missionaries by the political limitations the , the succession of [[archimandrite]]s and [[bishop]]s who headed the Mission were successful introducing successfully introduced the cultural, ethnographical, and statistical information to Europeans through translations of Chinese literature. Among these works were the translations and compositions of Fr. Ioakinf (Bichurin) and a Chinese dictionary by Fr. Daniel Siviloff, During this 150 year period the Russian Orthodox Mission was confined to the mission center in Beijing. This confinement resulted in less than two hundred conversions of Chinese that also which included many who were descendants of the Albasin prisoners.
The Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) in 1858 changed the situation of the Beijing mission radically. The treaty admitted to China representatives of foreign governments and rights of residence in China to Christian missionaries. In the new period diplomatic and religious activities of the Beijing Mission were separated. Translations of the Scriptures began to appear. The Mission head, Archimandrite Gury Karpov, participated actively in the negotiations of the Beijing Treaty of 1860 under which Russia gained lands along the Amur River. Having studied Chinese for many years he was active also in translating the New Testament into Chinese, as well as collecting earlier translations of Orthodox books for re-translation into the Chinese spoken language. He expanded preaching and lecturing in church, reaching areas beyond Beijing.
While the literary and translation efforts continued through most of the later part of the nineteenth century, the missionary work in the later part of the century lagged due to inadequate funding for preaching outside of Beijing as well as the arrival of new missionaries whose Chinese language skills were inadequate. The era of an all-Russian [[clergy]] ended when a Chinese priest, Fr. Mitrofan Ji, was [[ordination|ordained]] in Japanby [[Nicholas of Japan|Abp. Nicholas]] of Tokyo. Fr. Mitrofan died a [[martyr]] in the [[June 11]], 1900 Boxer uprising in China. The about 500 baptisms that had been performed by the Mission and the establishment of two new churches, one each in Hankou and Kalgan (Zhangjiakou) had not contributed significantly to the Mission’s missionary efforts.
With the arrival of Archimandrite [[Innocent (Figurosky) of Beijing|Innocent]] in March 1897 the situation change abruptly. Fr. Innocent immediately undertook reforms in the Mission: he established a monastery, instituted daily services in Chinese, established support for Albasins with business abilities, organized parish activities, dispatched preachers to the hither lands outside Beijing to spread the [[Gospel]], and established charity efforts among the local poor. While Fr. Innocent’s arrival began a period of active missionary efforts, the beginning of the twentieth century also brought serious troubles for the Russian Orthodox Mission, as it did for other Christian missions. The Boxer (Yihetuan Movement) revolt in 1900 resulted in the destruction of the buildings in Beijing, Dongdingan, and Kalgan (Zhangjiakou). The riots caused the death of more than 200 Orthodox faithful. The losses also included the extensive library in the Beijing compound begun by Archimandrite Peter during the tenth mission. The Mission survived, and by 1902 there were 32 churches in China with nearly 6,000 members
Following the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, the Mission lost its support base and had to fend for itself. At the same time the arrival of many Russian refuges in China greatly increased the number of Orthodox believers. The number of churches also increased, largely to support the Russian arrivals. This led to the establishment of new dioceses. In China, dioceses were established around the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin, in addition to Beijing. A diocese in Harbin had developed out of support for the Russian colony associated with the Eastern China Railway.
During the years after the Bolshevik Revolution many of the Orthodox bishops joined with the exile [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia]], that was initially headquartered in Karlovci, Yugoslavia, but later in Munich, Germany and then New York in the United States. At the end of World War II, and with the arrival of Soviet forces, particularly in Manchuria, the Moscow Patriarchate gained [[jurisdiction ]] over the Russian bishops in China and Harbin.
In 1949, after establishment of the People’s Republic of China that was under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, treaties between the Soviet and Chinese governments led to transfer of jurisdiction of the Russian churches to the Chinese. While many of the Russian expatriates were arrested by the communists for return to the Soviet Union, many returned voluntarily. Other families and clergy escaped to the non-communist world, many under the leadership of Bishop [[John Maximovitch|John of Shanghai]].
