Missionary activity in the Orenburg diocese among old believers and sectarians in the documents of SAOR

The history of missionary activity in the Orenburg diocese has a rich historiographical tradition. Despite the active interest of historians to the archival materials of the State archive of the Orenburg region, there is still the prospect of entering into scientific circulation of new historical sources. The article deals with a set of documents of SAOR devoted to missionary work among old believers and sectarians who lived in the late XIX - early XX century in the Orenburg diocese: statistical sources, office materials of church departments, business correspondence. The documents allow to reconstruct the practice of missionary activity and its transformation caused by the decree «On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance» of 1905. The office documentation includes various reports, decrees, petitions, correspondence, reports, etc. The most informative are the annual diocesan reports: they concentrated information about the state of the old believers in the region. Correspondence of secular and ecclesiastical departments indicates that closely.