This dissertation was embarked upon for the historical examination and the missiological academic analysis of ‘The state-political character of the mission of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has been mentioned widely without any academic examination. This kind of study is necessary to understand rightly the Eastern Orthodox world which was drawn to the Korean church immediately after the collapse of USSR, and to establish the proper relationships between the old USSR and the Eastern European people as well as how best to evangelize them. The researcher analyzes the Russian archives in relation to the missions of Russian Orthodox Church. He carefully examines and analyzes closely the historical materials from 1860 till 1917(Bolshevik Revolution) including the mission of the Russian Orthodox Church to the immigrant Koreans and those between 1897 and 1925 in relation to the mission to the Koreans in the Korean peninsula. In the result of this analysis, it could be said that the mission of Russian Orthodox Church was a reverse movement to the mission of Trinitarian God transcendent to man-made boundaries. It was mission as an instrument not for serving the interest of God toward the whole world, but for serving the interest of his or her own country alone. It was a distorted mission far from demonstrating the love of God because of absolutizing the nationalistic political ideology ‘russiani-zation’ As a result, it became heterogeneous apart from the right motif, goal and method of God’s mission. In the result of this study, it became possible to describe concretely the character and mode of the state-political mission of Russian orthodox church which has been vaguely mentioned and to have a theoretical prospect the general results which might happen in the process of the state-political missions. This study could probably be an available knowledge not only for those who are participating in missions to the people who has lived in the state-political mission world, but also for those who wish to evangelize it, cooperate with the Eastern Orthodox churches as well as offer invaluable suggestions to the mission scholars around the world.

• 남정우(서울여대)