Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia

The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia (Русская духовная миссия в Урмии, Orthodox Mission in Urmia, Урмийская духовная миссия) was an orthodox mission of the Russian Orthodox Church for ethnic Assyrians who lived in the border region with Russia in the Persian Azerbaijan province who converted from the Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church in 1898. Other Assyrians in northern Iraq, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey had already long been members of the considerably older Syriac Orthodox Church. Formally, the mission covers only twenty years - from 1898 to 1918, but the period prior to its establishment, lasted almost the entire second half of the 19th century.

There was a group from the Assyrian Church of the East that converted to Orthodoxy in 1898. In the mid 1890s, Abun Mar Yonan, the Nestorian Bishop of Urmia, petitioned the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church that he and his flock be received into the Russian Church. Mar Yonan traveled to Saint Petersburg in 1898, where he and several of his clergy accepted Orthodoxy. They were received into the Russian Orthodox Church by confession of faith and vesting on the Feast of the Annunciation at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The services were presided over by Metropolitan Palladius (Raev) of Saint Petersburg. Also in 1898, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church established the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia, in order to aid Mar Yonan in the conversion and education of his flock.

Along with Bishop Yonan, Archimandrite Elia (Abraham) converted to Orthodoxy in 1898. In 1904 he was consecrated to the Episcopate and became vicar of Bishop Yonan.

Since 1905, the mission published the magazine Orthodox Urmia in both the Assyrian-Aramaic and Russian languages.

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