The article deals with the transformations that took place in the culture of the Yakuts and Chukches while they were baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church at the end of the XIXth – the beginning of the XXth centuries. Analyzing the publications in the Yakutsk Eparchial Bulletin, the author examines these transformations in connection with the ethnocultural memory and identity of the indigenous population and comes to the conclusion that changes in the linguistic, ritual, everyday and social sphere of their life led to the transformation of their religious and civic identity.