There are residents of Beijing in the Amur region in Russia who are descendants of the Albazin Cossacks. One of them, following his ancestors, has taken Baptism in the waters of the river Amur, reports the website of the Diocese of Blagoveschensk.
Last Wednesday, a Chinese delegation from Beijing arrived to the Diocese of Blagoveschensk. Among the delegation members there were three relatives of the Dubinins Albazin Cossacks. Two cousins, who have already been baptized Orthodox, even introduce themselves as Peter Pavlovich and Viktor Tihonovich. But their nephew, Du Chun Tsi, has come to be baptized on the land of his ancestors.
Once he expressed this desire to the Rector of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul the Apostles in Hong Kong Archpriest Dionisy Pozdnyaev. The priest then addressed the pilgrimage service of the Diocese of Blagoveschensk, whose leader Olga Anikina gladly agreed to meet and accompany the Chinese delegates to Albazino.
In the evening of the day of arrival, a short prayer service was celebrated for the guests in the Blagoveschensk Cathedral before the wonder-working Albazin Icon of the Mother of God, “The Word Was Made Flesh”, near which their forbears had prayed several hundred years before them. After this, an excursion through the main church of the region was held for the Chinese delegates.
The guests visited the village of Albazino, founded back in the 17th century during the first wave of settlement along the Amur. At the parish of the Albazin Icon of the Mother of God, its Rector, Igumen Ignaty (Chigvintsev) served the Divine Liturgy, at which the Orthodox descendants of the Albazin Cossacks from China took Holy Communion.
After the service, the Priest baptized the Chinese resident Du Chun Tsi, who received the name Vasily in Baptism, on the bank of the river. Father Ignaty baptized the descendant of Cossacks from Beijing with full immersion in the waves of the Amur.
Vasily Du has taken with him a small sack with some earth from the grave of his forefathers, whose remains had never found their way back to their native land. He wishes to leave it in Albazino. In turn, he would like to take with him some earth from Albazino, which he considers to be his spiritual motherland.