A Brief Essay on the History of the Lisri Parish of the Vladikavkaz Diocese

Abstract

The article researches the history of the Orthodox parish of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the mountain village of Lisri. In late 19th/early 20th century . Russian Orthodox Church was very active in terms of missionary, cultural and educational work in the mountain parishes of Ossetia. For well-known reasons, this activity and its results had not been investigated for a while, resulting in a gap in the historiography of the region, and now it is crucial to fill it in. The novelty of the study consists in the wording of the problem: the object of the study is an Orthodox parish as a grass-roots structural unit of the church, while clergymen’s personalities are reserarched through the prism of the history of the parish they served in. In addition, the fact of the existence of the Lisri parish has not been reflected in any scientific work on the history of Christianity in Ossetia and has been traced back basing on documents that had not been researched for a long time. The objective of the work was to study the history of the development of one of the major Orthodox parishes in the mountainous part of Ossetia. The identities of priests and church servants from the parish of the Uspensky church at different times were identified based on on archive materials, and their activity aimed at the promotion of the Lisri parish was shown. It is the first time a foreign source containing data on the life of the parish of Lysr in 1909 is mentioned by the reaserchers. The tolerant character of interaction between the Orthodox Church and the traditional Ossetian community is noted. After analyzing a number of sources the authors conclude that the subtle missionary work and respectful attitude towards Ossetian culture that was noted in clergy of all levels (including the bishop) in many ways determined the success of Orthodoxy in the Lisri parish, which in just 10 years since being inaugurated had become one of the most significant church parishes in the mountainous part of Ossetia.