The missionary activity of the priest Grigory Kalitinkin among the Old Believers of the Sapozhkovsky district of the Ryazan diocese in the second half of the XIX century

At present, one of the problems of the Russian Orthodox Church is the insufficiently active missionary work of parish priests. This applies not only to conversion to Orthodoxy from non-Orthodox denominations or other religious groups, but also fully to their own parishioners, who have not yet fully converted to the Church since the reign of atheist propaganda. The study of the history of missionary activity in a particular diocese can help to correct this shortcoming. So, for example, in the Ryazan diocese from the end of the XIX to the beginning of the XX centuries. the organization of missionary activity was carried out by the Brotherhood of St. Basil Bishop of Ryazan, which left a rich heritage of historical material, including the activities of its members. One of the active missionaries of this society was the priest Grigory Kalitinkin. His biography and reports are still unexplored. He was a zealous missionary, the fruit of whose activity was the conversion of several dozen Old Believers, as well as the mentor, the Old Believer-bespopovtsa Guri Svirkin, who became his indispensable assistant. This article is intended to fill in a blank spot in the history of missionary activity of the prerevolutionary period in the Ryazan diocese, by the example of the organization of a parish mission by a member of the Brotherhood of St. Basil Bishop of Ryazan, Priest Grigory Kalitinkin.