Compliance and Russian legislation on missionary activity in the 19th century

The article is devoted to the issue of legal regulation of missionary activity in the Russian state in the 19th century. We study the problem of the attitude of the Russian government to non-Orthodox confessions through the prism of such categories as “missionary work”, “proselytism”, “freedom of religion”. The article analyzes the main legislative documents of the specified period of time, which restrict the actions of non-Orthodox confessions, first of all, missionary activity, despite the proclaimed freedom of conscience and religion. The author comes to the conclusion that all the actions of the Russian government in the specified period of time were aimed at maintaining limited compliance, based on maintaining the dominant position of the Russian Orthodox Church and preventing the spread of non-Orthodox beliefs within the Russian state.