Archimandrite
Archimandrite Makary (in the world Mikhail Yakovlevich Glukharev) was the first missionary of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Mountain Altai. He was born on November 8, 1792, in the family of a priest in Vyazma. He received a good education, graduating from the theological school and the Smolensk Theological Seminary. In 1818, he was tonsured into monasticism with the name Makary and ordained as a hieromonk.
In 1829, by the blessing of Metropolitan Philaret, he went to Altai to convert the Turkic peoples to Orthodoxy. In 1830, he founded the Altai Spiritual Mission, where he began to actively preach and baptize the local population. The first years of his ministry were difficult, but he achieved significant results, converting about 700 people to Orthodoxy.
Father Makary also paid attention to teaching the indigenous peoples literacy and the basics of agriculture, creating the Altai writing system. He built houses for the newly baptized, provided them with necessary resources, and sought financial support for the mission.
In 1844, he was dismissed from the mission and appointed as the abbot of the Bolkhov Trinity Optina Monastery, where he died on May 18, 1847. He was buried in the monastery's cathedral. In 1983, he was canonized, and his name was included in the Synaxis of Siberian Saints.
