The article analyzes the socio-political aspects of the internal church mission in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. The author claims that for almost three centuries before the 1917 revolution, the Russian Church was one of the main forces of modernization of the country, carried out according to the Western model. With the development of theological schools, the discourse of the Russian clergy changed; it began to perceive itself as a civilizing force. Meanwhile, the bulk of the country’s population has preserved the ideals-images of pre-Petrine Russia. Now they are largely transformed into the discourse of the Old Believers and new religious entities, including those within the church. The inner mission expressed the ideas of the white clergy, which turned into an independent socio-political force and related spiritual schools and the missionary press. Her activities came into confl ict with folk tradition.