This article addresses some aspects of the social tensions that have accompanied religious pluralism that emerged in post-Soviet Russia. The paper presents a case study of Evangelical Christians’ attempts to position themselves as legitimate actors in the local religious landscape in the Komi Republic, where Russian Orthodoxy is considered to be traditional. In the first part of the paper, I will consider how discourses learned from the media are used to conceptualise contacts with non-Orthodox believers and what aspects of Evangelical practice and ideology seem alien to the Komi villagers and provoke reproachful attitudes. The second part of the paper discusses the Evangelical responses to criticism and the strategies they use to diminish it.