Window on Eurasia: Russians Attending Church Increasingly Diverse But Not More Numerous

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 12 – The Moscow Patriarchate, the Kremlin, and most observers have long been accustomed to viewing the Russian Orthodox Church and its members as “monolithic,” but in fact, there are already so many kinds of members that it is inappropriate to speak “about ‘the Orthodox’ in general, according to a Moscow journalist.

            In an article on the MN.ru portal, Andrey Desnitsky identifies some of what he says are increasingly numerous kinds of Russian Orthodox but notes that despite a development that would seem to open the way for the expansion of membership and attendance, neither of those trends are currently in evidence (mn.ru/woodwing_newspaper/20130102/334068180.html).

           

            The first kind, the journalist says, are “the Church grandmothers,” a group which he suggestsappears to an outside observer as some kind of tribe of aboriginals who have been preserved outside of time and space almost from the stone age.”  But he notes that this is “not entirely so.”

            When he first attended church a quarter of a century ago, Desnitsky says that “there were among them not a few who had been keeping the faith of their fathers and grandfathers through all the persecutions [of the Soviet system] but all the same had been Komsomol members in the 1930s and who on becoming pensioner could finaly think about the soul and learn the faith.”

            Since then, he says, “the level of literacy among them has increased but not by much.” Those in this category now are “simple women of the late Soviet period who have become pensioners and for whom the main thing is that everything proceed quietly and according to custom.” These women are “natural conservatives, but they never take note of the distance between church teachings and their own views.”

                The second category Desnitsky identifies includes “the intelligentsia believers.”  They are almost the opposite of the grandmothers in that “most often, their “spiritual life is to a significant degree” highly individual. They are guided by the Gospels, “and that is fine, but it is possible to read them in different ways,” and members of this group do.

            Within this category, there is “the entire spectrum of opinion,” from “radical libertarianism” to “dyed in the wool nationalism.” Each of them expects the church hierarchy to follow his or her lead, but unfortunately, the hierarchy expects all of them to fall into line with its views.

            The third category among the Russian Orthodox are “the sponsors,” a group that includes both wealthy people eager to gain respect or political figures who want to gain support.  All too often, Desnitsky says, these individuals try to take over the church. But “there can only be a single boss, and the people are not inclined to believe bosses” when they are multiple.

            The fourth group the MN.ru journalist identifies is made up of the Orthodox “careerists,” individuals who see he church as a corporation in which they can earn their living and rise to the top.  As such people rise, they often come to believe that they are entitled to their opinion on everything, but when they express it, many Russians naturally ask “who is behind them.”

            The fifth group includes “the Orthodox activists,” a group that “appeared relatively recently,” and their main goal is “the defense of holy things” according to the principle that “our people have always beaten those who are not ours and will continue to do so.”  This group is not large, but it is influential because its simple answers have the capacity to attract the young.

            And the sixth group consists of “the eternal visitors,” people who come to church on high holy days or for family occasions.  This group is the largest and its existence allows the hierarchy to “talk about 80 percent of the population being Orthodox.” But it is largely indifferent to the church as a set of ideas and thus “corresponds with the core electorate of the ruling party.”

           

            According to Desnitsky, there are a large number of other subgroups with the Russian Orthodox Church, and he ends his enumeration by noting that there still is in Russia “people of God,” individuals who seek to live according to the Gospels. “While such people exist, the Church will be alive.”

            And the Moscow journalist notes in conclusion that “sociological polls give statistics [about Church members] that at first glance appear absurd: the majority of the residents of the country consider themselves Orthodox, a little over half believe in Bod, about a third know the basic provisions of the faith, and about a tenth go to Church regularly.”

            In fact, that last statement may be an exaggeration because new data show that the numbers of people taking regular or even in the holiday services of the Russian Orthodox Church are far lower than the church itself or its political allies routinely claim, as data collected by the Russian interior ministry show.

Drawing on that source, Moscow’s SOVA Center has assembled information on the number of churches that held Christmas services this year in various cities, regions and republics, the number of people attending these services, and the percentages of the local population they form (www.sova-center.ru/religion/discussions/how-many/2013/01/d26162/):

·         Moscow: 348 churches held services, 226,000 people attended, and they represented 1.6-1.9 percent of the population,

·         Bryansk: 30 churches held services, 4500 people attended, and they represented 1.1 percent of the population.

·         Voronezh oblast: 78,500 people attended Christmas services, representing 3.3 percent of the population.

·         Kostroma oblast: 74 churches held services, 6,000 people attended, and they represented 0.8 percent of the population.

·         Lipetsk oblast: 187 churches held services, 20,000 people attended, and they represented 1.8 percent of the population.

·         Ryazan oblast: 293 churches held services, 75,000 people attended, and they represented 6 percent of the population.

·         Tambov oblast: 117 churches held services, 20,000 people attended, and they represented 1.9 percent of the population.

·         Bashkortostan: 141 churches held services, 43,000 people attended, and they represented 1.1 percent of the population.

·         Nizhne-Novgorod oblast: 348 churches held services, more than 80,000 people attended, and they represented 2.5 percent of the population.

·         Mordvinia: 231 churches held services, 15,000 people attended, and they represented 1.8 percent of the population.

·         Orenburg oblast: Approximately 20,000 people attended, and they represented 1 percent of the population.

·         Perm kray: 132 churches held services, more than 97,000 attended, and they formed 3.7 percent of the population.

·         Samara oblast: 205 churches held services, 43,000 people attended, and they formed 1.4 percent of the population.

·         Saratov oblast: 142 churches held services, more than 17,000 people attended, and they formed 0.7 percent of the population.

·         Udmurtia: 81 churches held services, 30,000 people attended, and they formed 1.9 percent of the population.

·         Tomsk oblast: 5,000 people attended services, and they formed 0.5 percent of the population.

·         Vologda oblast: 14,000 people attended services,and they formed 1.3 percent of the population.

·         Komi Republic: 61 churches held services, more than 17,500 people attended, and they formed 2 percent of the population.

·         Sverdlovsk oblast: 317 churches held services, 64,500 people attended, and they formed 1.4 percent of the population.

·         Tyumen oblast: 317 churches held services, 64,500 people attended, and they formed 0.3 percent of the population.

·         Adygey Republic: 39 churches held services, 6,000 people attended, and they formed 1.4 percent of the population.

·         Rostov Oblast: Approximately 100,000 people attended services, and they formed 2.3 percent of the population.

·         Cheboksary: Seven churches held services, 3300 people attended, and they formed 0.6 percent of the population.