This post was originally published on this site.
The proportion of Russians identifying as Orthodox has fallen from 78% to 65% in the past 15 years, according to a new survey.
The survey, conducted by Russia’s Public Opinion Foundation on behalf of St. Tikhon’s University in Moscow, also concluded that the proportion of Orthodox Christians who never attend services has risen from 28% to 32% in the same period.
The findings, reported May 14 by the Vedomosti newspaper, are significant because the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of the 14 universally recognized self-governing Eastern Orthodox Churches. Estimates of its membership vary, with some counts suggesting there are 110 million Russian Orthodox Christians worldwide, including 95 million in Russia. But the number of active believers is considered to be far lower.
The new research, based on a survey of 1,501 adults in February and March, also sheds light on the state of Russian Orthodoxy amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which was launched in 2022 with the support of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
But some Russian Orthodox commentators have cast doubt on the survey’s findings. Fr. Alexey Volkov, a priest in Ulyanovsk, western Russia, told the
Read more...
