This article focuses on the fate of the little-researched Japanese Orthodox priest, Father Sergius (Suzuki), who preached in the Chinese city of Mukden in the early 20th century. Using the biography of Sergius (Suzuki) as a microhistorical example, the article describes the complex inter-state relations in
Northeast Asia in the early 20th century and focuses on the spread of Orthodoxy in East Asia, which is especially relevant in today’s dialogue of cultures. The history of Orthodoxy’s development in Mukden and the changing dynamics of Orthodoxy’s spread in “South Manchuria” are also highlighted, explaining that the “accidental” presence of Japanese Orthodox priests in China in the early 20th century was no accident. Using the method of micro-historical research, the example of the biography of Sergius (Suzuki) traces the changes in the fate of “little people” occurring at a time of great historical events, it says about the plight of the Orthodox Church in China and generally in the Far East of the late 19th — early 20th centuries.

The article deals with the biography of Chrysanth (Shchetkovsky) — the head of the Russian Theological Mission in Korea in 1899–1904 — before he was sent to Seoul. The purpose of the work is to demonstrate the peculiarities of the formation of the Russian Orthodox missionary in the conditions of deepening problems faced by Russia at the final stage of its existence, and increasing confrontation between the great powers in East Asia. The novelty of the study is determined by the use of global microhistory methodology to analyze the biographical material, which allows us to consider the private life of a person as part of the global context and, at the same time, to assess the significance of the fate of an individual in the world historical space. Chrysanth’s turn to missionary activity was dictated, on the one hand, by pragmatic reasons connected with the death of his wife and the actual impossibility to remarry, which predetermined the impossibility to fully engage in parish work, as well as by the obvious predisposition of the future head of the Ecclesiastical Mission in Seoul to educational work. At the Kazan Theological Academy a thorough religious studies training was combined with a strong school of missionary and oriental studies. Predetermined the formation of Chrysanth as an “empire builder” and prepared him to work as an agent of Russian influence and missionary of the Orthodox faith on the Korean peninsula.