Different people answered this question in different ways. When in 1990 an employee of the Institute for Bible Translation in Moscow (IBT) came to the city of Kyzyl, he suggested that a well-known ethnographer and writer in the republic begin translating the Bible. He refused. The fact is that he was also a practicing shaman, and one of the main ones, but the Institute simply did not know about this side of his activities. At the same time, the shaman did not object to the very idea of such a translation and recommended his distant relative (and everyone in Tuva remembers who belongs to which family) Nikolai Kuular. He was a writer and translator of classical Russian literature into the Tuvan language, while he was a non-believer.

Nikolai agreed to this work. It was very important for him that the Tuvan reader had access to the great treasure of world culture in his native language. And this is a fairly common picture for such translation projects: not everyone who participates in them is Christian, and it would be difficult to find Christians who have the proper qualifications. In the same 1990s, a group of believers published a translation of several Bible books into the Tuvan language, but it did not pass practically any serious verification and therefore looked simply like a literal version of the Russian Synodal text. At first, Nicholas did not even imagine how difficult and long the path ahead of him was, he was then going to translate the Bible alone in a few years...

The work took almost two decades, and Nikolai was not the only one who participated in it. Other translators were Eduard Mizhit, Maria Kuzhuget and Sailykmaa Kombu; the translation was checked by Vitaly Voynov, Lyudmila Mizhit, Tatyana Kandaurova, Elena Samba and Sergey Sychev. These are Tuvans and Russians; Buddhists, Protestants and Orthodox. It is worth talking in detail about Vitaly Voynov, an American of Russian origin. He was born in Leningrad but grew up in New York. While still in America, he began to study the Tuvan language, felt called to work among this people, and as a result, he spent eight years, beginning in 1999, in Kyzyl, where he not only completed a theological examination of most of the Tuvan Bible, but also met his wife, Oksana. Four of their five (at the moment) children were born there.

After all, the world of biblical translation is an amazing world. Where else could Vitaly, who grew up among skyscrapers, and Nikolai, who grew up in a yurt, meet and not just meet, but successfully work for ten years in the same team?

The final verification of the New Testament was carried out by David Clark, an Englishman consultant to the United Bible Societies, an older colleague and friend of mine, from whom I learned a great deal. And the Old Testament fell to my lot. By the end of the work, I had a strong feeling that the team had reached a level where they might need my hint in some controversial case, which they themselves would point out, but a complete check, simply necessary in many other projects, is completely unnecessary.

It should be noted separately that the Tuvan group sometimes invited representatives of local Christians to their working meetings. Ultimately, they will be the main readership, and it was very important for the translators to explain and demonstrate in practice the principles of their work. Local Christians often argued among themselves, for example, about how to say "Holy Spirit" or "prayer" in Tuvan, and were surprised to see that in translation it is not always possible to find a single, the most correct solution: each option has strengths and weaknesses and may not suit someone. I think that such meetings and discussions were a wise and important decision for the future of the Tuvan Bible.

The Tuvan New Testament was printed in 2001, and at the same time a translation of the "Bible for Children" into Tuvan was published. Some books (but by no means all) from the Old Testament were published in trial editions in the 2000s, and by 2008 the draft of the last Old Testament book was completed. But the work did not end there: it was necessary to check the entire translation for the consistency of the use of key terms and proper names, to make corrections to the translation of the New Testament in accordance with the decisions made on the Old Testament, and other procedures for preparing the book for publication, for example, the preparation of cross-references to parallel passages.

Soon readers will finally see the Bible translated into the Tuvan language. But the story does not end there. Nikolay Kuular, with the help of Vitaly Voinov, has already translated and published three books by C. S. Lewis from the Chronicles of Narnia series, and this work continues. He also says that Tuvans need manuals that help them understand the biblical text. The Bible does not live in culture alone, by itself. One can be sure that the fate of the people who receive this book in their own language is changing forever – and it is certainly changing for the better.

17. Mission for Muslims: Talking About the Wrong Thing

The murder of priest Danniil Sysoev caused a lot of controversy: why he was killed, whether he was worthy of canonization... He has already appeared before the One Who alone can decide his fate in eternity. And all our arguments are about the wrong thing, about the wrong thing at all.

Of course, it is of no small importance for the Church who will be canonized and on what grounds, and what such canonization will tell us about the lives of the newly-glorified saints. In my opinion, there is every reason to believe that Father Daniel was killed for his preaching of Christ and therefore became a martyr. On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason to think that in the event of canonization, his statements and actions, including his missionary approach itself, are no longer subject to discussion or doubt. It is quite possible to turn to a saint with a prayer and at the same time assert that he was wrong in something specific.

But behind all this talk about the merits and demerits of individuals, something much more important is lost. Christ said, "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19). This is not just a quotation from a biblical book, it is Christ's farewell commission to His apostles, these are the final words of the very first book of the New Testament. Sometimes referred to as the "great commission," they can indeed be understood as the primary task of the Church in this world. In any case, to ignore them, to pretend that they do not apply to us, or to reinterpret them in some other sense: we will not teach all peoples, but only some, or even not peoples, but their individual representatives, or we will only baptize those who wish, and then let them learn themselves – after all, it is impossible without obvious violence against the spirit and letter of the Scriptures.

All peoples – this sounds provocative, politically incorrect, and simply inconvenient. And what if the people already have their own traditional religion, and many of its zealous followers are ready to tear off the head of anyone who seduces fellow believers from the true path? It is no coincidence that in the official documents of the present time we are talking about the "small indigenous peoples of Russia", which are understood as the inhabitants of the Far North and the Far East: they certainly do not blow up the infidels and do not declare holy wars.

Here again we could go into lengthy arguments about the fact that all world religions actually teach goodness and tolerance, and only those who understand them incorrectly are fond of terrorism, but this will not be a conversation at all. Maybe ideally it is so, but in practice everything is somewhat different. It is given: different peoples with different traditional religions live on the canonical territory of our Church, and there are people among them who are extremely intolerant of other faiths. It is required (in the Gospel, let me remind you): to teach and baptize these peoples without the slightest exception. What is the proposed solution?