The paper analyzes the situation that had taken the most expressed forms since the second half of the XIX century and reflected strengthening criticism on the side of the Orthodox Church against both the Buddhist clergy and the Russian state. The contradictions between the state and the policies of Orthodoxy were caused by differences in principles, since the government when giving Buddhism some legitimacy was guided by the interests of Russia in the east of the Empire, while the Orthodox Church saw its task in suppressing the influence of Buddhist clergy through soonest religious and ideological homogenization of Buryats with the ethnic Russian population.