Religion in Russia

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow

There are a number of religions with adherents in Russia. The preamble to the 1997 law regulating religious organizations names Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism as important in Russian history. Orthodox Christianity (Russian: Православие Pravoslavije) is Russia's traditional and largest religion, deemed a part of Russia's "historical heritage" in a law passed in 1997. Russian Orthodoxy is the dominant religion in Russia.^{[citation needed]} 95% of the registered Orthodox parishes belong to the Russian Orthodox Church while there are a number of smaller Orthodox Churches. However, the vast majority of Orthodox believers do not attend church on a regular basis.

Ivolginsky Datsan, Buryatia

The ancestors of many of today’s Russians adopted Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century. According to the U.S. Department of State, approximately 100 million citizens consider themselves Russian Orthodox Christians, amounting to 70% of population, although only 5 percent of Russians call themselves observant. However the Church claims a membership of 80 million. According to a poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 63% of respondents considered themselves Russian Orthodox, 6% of respondents considered themselves Muslim and less than 1% considered themselves either Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. Another 12% said they believe in God, but did not practice any religion, and 16% said they are non-believers. Official census counter around 14.5 million. Russia also has an estimated 3 million to 4 million Muslim migrants, both legal and illegal, from the ex-Soviet states. Most Muslims live in the Volga-Ural region, as well as in the North Caucasus, Moscow, St. Petersburg and western Siberia. Buddhism is traditional for three regions of the Russian Federation: Buryatia, Tuva and Kalmykia. Some residents of the Siberian and Far Eastern regions, Yakutia, Chukotka, etc., practice pantheistic and pagan rites, along with the major religions. Induction into religion takes place primarily along ethnic lines. Slavs are overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian. Turkic speakers are predominantly Muslim, although several Turkic groups in Russia are not.

Adherents

Detailed analysis of popularity of religions in Russia is complicated by the fact that different approaches to quantifying adherents of different religious groups often give contradictory results.

• The most natural approach is based on self-identification data. The majority of Russian citizens, and as many as 90% of ethnic Russians,^{[citation needed]} self-identify as Russian Orthodox. This makes^{[citation needed]} Russian Orthodox Church by far the most widespread religion, with as many as 70-75 million adult adherents.

Based on self-identification data,^{[citation needed]} the population of Russia includes 70.2% of Russian Orthodox Christians, 4-6% are Muslims, a little more than 1% of Protestants (including 0.3% of Lutherans), a little less than 1% of Roman Catholics and some 0.1% of Old Believers. About 0.1% of the population are adherents of Buddhism. A Russian census of 2002 found 230 thousand (0.16%) ethnic Jews in the country, but only 8% of them, (which is 0.01% of the total population) self-identify as followers of Judaism. Small religions in Russia comprise 0.19%. 4% of the population identified themselves as non-believers.

• The so-called "ethnic approach" is primarily useful when applied towards ethnic religious communities that are small and/or compact enough to be "left out" of normal public opinion polls. It based on an assumption that 100% of population of every ethnic minority are adherents of their group's traditional religion. A good example of such a religious community is Assyrian Church of the East, represented in Russia by ethnic Assyrians. With the body of followers of less than 15,000, it wouldn't show up or would fall within the margin of error on any reasonable religious self-identification poll, and its size can only be reasonably inferred from census data using the ethnic approach.

Saint Petersburg Mosque

The ethnic approach is sometimes misused to artificially "inflate" prevalence of certain religions. For example, according to the Russian census of 2002, at least 14 million people in Russia belong to traditional Islamic ethnic groups, including registered migrants(Tatars, Bashkirs, etc.) Consequently, it is often claimed that Islam has 14 million (or even 20-25 million) adherents in Russia. However it should be noted that Russia does not have birth-right citizenship, and the children born to immigrants are not granted Russian passports. Also, among the traditional Islamic ethnic groups, there are large number of people who no longer practice Islam. For example, one-third of the Adzharians, 25% each of Tatars and Adyghe and more than 10% of Kazakhs living in Russia practice Christianity.

• One can get radically different results by estimating the number of observant followers of every religion, the reason being that members of many ethnic groups often choose to self-identify as adherents to a certain religion for cultural reasons, although they would not fit any traditional religiousness criteria (church attendance, familiarity with basic dogmas of their faith). For example, even though 80% of ethnic Russians self-identify as Russian Orthodox, less than 10% of them attend church services more than once a month and only 2-4% are considered to be integrated into church life (воцерковленные).

Depending on the exact criteria, it is believed that there are 3-15 million practising Orthodox Christians and 1.5-4 million practising Muslims in Russia. It is difficult to estimate observance of self-identified followers of other religions. The only faiths which are likely not to suffer from this phenomenon as strongly are those without ethnic basis in the country: most branches of Protestantism, Roman Catholicism generally, New religious movements, Krishnaism, Bahá'í.

• Yet another way of comparing relative popularity of various religions in Russia is to look at the numbers of registered local congregations (Christian parishes, Muslim mosques, and so on). According to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), there were 21,664 registered religious organizations in Russia as of January 1, 2004, including 20,403 local congregations. 10,767 were Russian Orthodox; 3,397 were Muslim; almost 5,000 were various Protestant organizations and groups; 267 were Old Believers; 256 were Judaic; 235 were Roman Catholic; 180 were Buddhist. However, religions can vary significantly in numbers of followers per congregation, and some religions may be somewhat "under-registered" for various reasons.

Using these numbers, one attempt to estimate numbers of practising followers of different religions in Russia arrives at the following results: 3-15 million Russian Orthodox; 2.8 million Muslim; over 1.5 million Protestant (including at least 900 thousand Pentecostals); no more than 500 thousand Buddhists; 300 thousand followers of New religious movements; 60-200 thousand Roman Catholic; 50-80 thousand Old Believers.

One experiences similar problems when trying to determine the number of atheists in Russia. As discussed above, the majority of Russians are non-observant, and more than 50% never attend church services of any kind. On the other hand, numbers of those self-identifying as "non-religious" are much lower, and, further, vary wildly from poll to poll (from 14% to 36%). Numbers of self-identified atheists are often as low as 4%.

Dynamics

The Temple of All Religions in Kazan, combining various forms of religious architecture

Several mechanisms are responsible for gradual changes in the religious structure of Russia.

• Most religions present in Russia are ethnic-based. Expectedly, their prevalence changes as their respective ethnic groups grow or shrink. The most prominent example of this is Judaism -- the number of ethnic Jews in Russia shrunk by more than a factor of 10 since mid-20th century. Number of Lutherans and Mennonites has declined somewhat since Soviet era due to emigration of Volga Germans. Conversely, the population of Islamic ethnic groups continues to grow (from 8% of total population of the country in 1989 to at least 10% in 2002), and so does prevalence of Islam.
• Missionary work of various Western Protestant and "new religious" groups in Russia since 1990 contributed to growth of a number of non-ethnic religions and faiths.
• There are indications that some traditional religions are on the decline as well. Old believers are down to less than 1% compared to 10% in Czarist Russia. Buddhism is on the decline among its traditional followers in Northern Asia, supplanted by Shamanism.
• On the other hand, the New Age movement has led to emergence of some "non-traditional" religions in large cities. Polls indicate that around 1% of population of Moscow and St.Petersburg self-identify as Buddhists. Many of these are Slavic and have no ethnic connection to Buddhism.

Bhagavad Gita

Main article: Bhagavad Gita trial in Russia

A group linked to the Christian Orthodox Church had demanded a ban owing to conflict of interests between the Russian followers of Krishna and the local authorities in the Siberian region of Tomsk. The case was dismissed by the federal judge on 28th of December 2011.

Russian ambassador Alexander Kadakin condemned the "madmen" seeking the ban, said the following underlining that Russia was a secular country:

“

Russia is a secular and democratic country where all religions enjoy equal respect... Even more applicable it is to the holy scriptures of various faiths -- whether it is the Bible, the Holy Quran, Torah, Avesta and, of course, Bhagvad Gita -- the great source of wisdom for the people of India and the world.

”

Post the ban, 15,000 Indians in Moscow, and followers of the Iskcon in Russia appealed to the Indian government to intervene to resolve the issue. The move triggered strong protests by Members of Parliament as they wanted the Indian Government to take up the matter strongly with Russia. The final hearing in the Tomsk district court was then scheduled on 28 December, after the court agreeing to seek the opinion of the Russian Ombudsman on human rights in Tomsk region and of Indologists from Moscow and St Petersburg.

Registered religious organizations

The following is a detailed breakdown of numbers of registered religious organizations in Russia as of December 2006.

Christianity

Orthodox

29,784 organizations, including:

• Russian Orthodox Church: 29,268
• Old believers (a breakaway faction of the Russian Orthodox Church): 285 (divided among 4 groups)
• Armenian Apostolic: 68
• Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church: 43
• Russian Orthodox Church Abroad: 30
• Molokan: 27
• Russian True Orthodox Church: 42
• Russian Orthodox Free Church: 10
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate: 11

Protestant

4453 organizations.

• Pentecostals: 1,486
• Baptists: 965
• Evangelicals: 740
• Seventh-day Adventist: 652
• Lutheran: 228 (divided among 4 groups)
• Presbyterian: 187
• Methodist: 115
• New Apostolic: 80
• Various evangelical groups (Word of Faith, Apostolic, "teetotallers"): 70
• Salvation Army: 32
• Churches of Christ: 26
• Mennonite: 9
• Reformist: 5
• Anglican: 1
• Dukhobor: 0

Catholic

255 organizations.

• Roman Catholic: 231
• Greek Catholic: 4

Islamic

• Islam: 8,000+, including:
• Mufti Councils: 70
• Islamic University: 4
• Madrassa: 8000
• Mosque: 7000
• Hajj Pilgrimage Associations: 5
• Halal Producers Associations: 9

Other religions

5800+ organizations.

• Judaism: 267 (divided among Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform groups).
• Karaite: 1
• Buddhism: 192
• Hinduism: 80
• Krishnaism: 78
• Tantra: 2
• Bahá'í: 20
• Shamanism: 14
• Pagan: 11
• Taoism: 6
• Assyrian: 2
• Scientology: 2
• Sikh: 1
• Zoroastrianism: 1
• Spiritual Unity (Tolstoyan): 1
• Living Ethics (Rerikhian): 1
• Other Confessions: 216

Other

507 organizations.

• Jehovah's Witnesses: 386
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons): 50
• Church of the "Sovereign" Icon of the Mother of God: 27
• Church of the Last Testament: 11
• Unification Church: 9
• non-denominational Christian: 24

See also

• Religion in the Soviet Union
• Buddhism in Russia
• Islam in Russia
• Judaism in Russia
• List of tallest Orthodox churches
• Religion in present-day nations and states
• Roman Catholicism in Russia
• Protestants in Russia
• Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union
• Scientology in Russia
• Slavic Neopaganism

External links

• International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Russia
• Statistics of Russian Religiousness (Russian)
• Confessional Structure of Russian Population (Russian)
• Registered Religious Organizations as of January 1, 2004; Ministry of Justice data (Russian)
• Secular State and Islamic Tradition in Russia
• Russia has a Muslim dilemma (article in San Francisco Chronicle)
• Muslims In Russia
• Islam to become Russia’s predominant religion by 2050?
• Religious minorities in Russia and Lithuania (Russian)
• The Relations Triangle: Islam, Russian Orthodox Church and the State in Post-communist Russia
•  "The Religion of Russia". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.