Amur Mission

The Amur Mission was a Siberian church unit that comprised the easternmost Oblasts of Siberia from 1914 to 1925.

Territory and Statistics¹

Period: 1914–1925

Territory: The Amur, “Maritime,” and Sakhalin Oblasts

Membership: 147

Churches: 11

Origin of Seventh-day Adventist Work in the Territory

By 1906, the Adventist mission had reached Asian Russia and the European denominational organ Zions-Wächter listed a new “Russio-Asian Field” in the German Union. Siberia then became part of the East Russian Mission in 1907 and the Siberian Mission in 1909. The easternmost part of Siberia became the East Siberian Mission in 1911.

Organizational History

The Amur Mission was organized in 1913 by cutting off territory from the East Siberian Mission. It started operation on January 1, 1914. The Mission comprised the Oblasts of Amur, Kamchatka, Primorskaya, and Sakhalin. No address was listed. The only officer listed was director H. Göbel. The mission did not belong to a union and was one of the missions directly under the European Division.²

Due to World War I and the Russian Civil War, there were no reports from Russia in Zions-Wächter after the first quarter of 1914 or in the Yearbook from 1918 to 1921. The last reports show the mission headquarters being moved around due to the uncertainties of war. In 1916, the mission was listed under the West Russian Union,³ the year after it was again under the European Division Missions,⁴ and in 1918 it was found under the Siberian Union Mission.⁵

In 1921 the East Siberian Union Mission was organized, and Amur Mission became one of its subfields. It had an address listed for the first time: Severny Prospect 39, Pervaya, Bechka, Vladivostock, Manchuria.⁶

In 1925 or 1926, Amur Mission was abolished and its territory became part of other church units. Amur Oblast went to Dalne Wostotschnaja Union Mission,⁷ but it is uncertain to which church units the remaining territory belonged.⁸

List of Presidents

H. Göbel, 1914–1917; M. Demidov, 1918–1923; A. Kalashnikov, 1924–1925.

Sources

Annual Statistical Report. Washington, D.C.: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1915.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1905–1930.

Notes

1. For period and territory, see the present article; for membership and churches, see Annual Statistical Report (Washington, D.C.: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1915), 8.↩

2. For information on the mission at its commencement, see “East Siberian Mission,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1914), 122; “Amur Mission,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1915), 124.↩

3. “Amur Mission,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1916), 123.↩

4. “Amur Mission,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1917), 132.↩

5. “Amur Mission,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1918), 133.↩

6. “Amur Mission,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1923), 128.↩

7. “Dalne Wostotschnaja Union Mission,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1926), 127.↩

8. The imperial administrative divisions were finally changed in Far East Russia in the 1920s. Neither the old or new names have been found in the Yearbook from 1926 onward.↩