Ulan-Bator, November 18, 2010
Orthodox Week was held by the Ah Oron (Motherland) Mongolian TV channel from November 8 to 14.
"It's remarkable that Christianity was not represented in Mongolia till early 1990," Rector of the Holy Trinity Parish in Ulan Bator Priest Alexey Trubach told an Interfax-Religion correspondent.
"However for the last twenty years Protestant sects have made great progress. Out of four per cent of Christians, 90 percent are Protestants! And that makes 97 thousand newly converted Mongolians (the country's population totals to 2.7 million people). Mormons make nine per cent of the Christians while Catholics and Orthodox equal to one per cent only," the priest said.
According to Father Alexey, the number of Protestants in Mongolia is actively growing thanks to their missionary activity.
The World Saints program on the Ah Oron channel made a research of religions represented in Mongolia giving a week on air for each of them. Many viewers first heard of Orthodoxy and its differences from Catholicism and Protestantism.
"In conditions when Russia is losing Mongolia as a strategic, economic and political partner and as one of sincerely friendly countries, Mongolians still treat Russians as brothers. That's why the Russian Orthodox Church was chosen to represent Christianity in Mongolia during the Christian week," the priest believes.
