Near China’s border with Russia, the Orthodox Church regains a toehold

IN THE CITY of Ergun, about 60km from China’s border with Russia, the feast of Pascha last month was one that Father Pavel Sun Ming will long remember. Because of covid-19, he could not open his Eastern Orthodox church for celebrations of Christ’s resurrection. Police wearing surgical masks stood outside, stopping passing cars to check people’s health. But it is last year’s Pascha in Ergun that will go down in history. For the first time in more than six decades, the church’s midnight service was led by a local. Father Pavel had recently returned from his ordination in Russia. At last, Ergun’s flock had a priest again.

Father Pavel is only the second person to be accepted officially in China as an Orthodox priest since Mao Zedong tried to wipe out religion a few years after seizing power in 1949. The first was Alexander Yu Shi, who was ordained in Russia in 2015 and now serves in Harbin, about 800km south-east of Ergun.

Before the Communist takeover, Russian Orthodoxy had a strong foothold among Russians living in China’s borderlands. They married local Chinese, but some of their descendants, such as Father Pavel and Father Alexander, kept up the faith. These days few of the 15,000 Chinese citizens of Russian ancestry speak Russian or even look like their Russian forebears. But the government regards them as members of...