Religion in Russia

Religion in Russia (2012)

Religion in Russia is diverse, with a 1997 law naming Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism as important in Russian history. Orthodox Christianity (Russian: Православие Pravoslaviye) is Russia's traditional and largest religion, deemed a part of Russia's "historical heritage" in the law passed in 1997. About 95% of the registered Orthodox parishes belong to the Russian Orthodox Church while there are a number of smaller Orthodox Churches. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has been a widespread revival of Siberian shamanism throughout Russia.

Respect for religious freedom by Russian authorities has declined in Russia since the late 1990s and early 2000s, prompting international criticism. An April 2017 report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) stated: "The Russian government views independent religious activity as a major threat to social and political stability, an approach inherited from the Soviet period." Thus, for the first time, the USCIRF classified Russia as one of the world's worst violators of religious liberty, recommending in its 2017 annual report that the U.S. government deem Russia a "country of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act and negotiate for religious liberty. The report states, that Russia "is the sole state to have not only continually intensified its repression of religious freedom since USCIRF commenced monitoring it, but also to have expanded its repressive policies....Those policies, ranging from administrative harassment to arbitrary imprisonment to extrajudicial killing, are implemented in a fashion that is systematic, ongoing, and egregious."

In the study of religions in Russia, the ethnicity-focused 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.

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