In his book, ‘Ways of Russian Theology’, Fr. Georges Florovsky wrote of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, ‘He had practically no direct disciples, nor did he create a school; he created something more important: a spiritual movement.’ In this article Alison Ruth Kolosova examines the life and work of one of Metropolitan Philaret’s lesser known spiritual disciples, Fr Viktor Vishnevskii, missionary and philologist in Chuvashia in the mid-19th century, who both greatly contributed to the development of the Chuvash written language, and prepared the way for later Russian Orthodox missions among non-Russian peoples.