Makarii Glukharev

Makarii Glukharev, born Mikhail Yakovlevich Glukharev in 1792 in Vyazma in the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire, was the son of a parish priest. He was educated at the Smolensk Theological Seminary and then at the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1817. In 1818 he received monastic tonsure with the name Makarii and was ordained to the priesthood. He taught in theological seminaries in the following years, including a period as rector of the Kostroma Theological Seminary, before withdrawing to monastic life at the Kiev Caves Lavra and later at the Glinsk Hermitage.

In 1829 the Holy Synod appointed him to organize an Orthodox mission among the indigenous peoples of the Altai in southern Siberia, work he began in 1830. Over about fourteen years he founded and directed the Altai Spiritual Mission. He studied the local Turkic dialects, compiled grammars and dictionaries, and translated biblical and liturgical texts into the Altai language, helping to establish a written form of that language. He opened schools and Christian settlements and baptized many Altaians, stressing catechesis, translation, and the training of local helpers rather than coercion. The mission operated under the harsh conditions of the Siberian frontier and with scant resources.

Makarii also worked to make the Scriptures available in vernacular Russian. He translated several Old Testament books into Russian and petitioned church authorities for a complete Russian Bible for popular use. That cause met resistance in some official quarters, though it was encouraged by figures such as Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow. In 1844 he left the Altai, in part because of failing health and administrative disagreements, and was appointed abbot of the Holy Trinity Optina Monastery in Bolkhov in the Oryol diocese.

He died in Bolkhov in 1847 and was buried at the monastery he had governed. The Russian Orthodox Church venerates him as a missionary saint, often called the Apostle of the Altai. The mission he founded continued after his death and influenced later Orthodox missionary work in Siberia. His linguistic and translational labors remain an important part of the history of the Altai peoples and of nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox missions.