Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 18 – Russians purchased 70 percent more books about Islam in the first half of 2024 than they did in the same period a year earlier, while they bought only 30 percent more books about Orthodox Christianity, a warning sign, some near the ROC MP say, of a growing interest in Islam among young Russians at the expense of Orthodox Christianity.
Some Orthodox leaders even believe, Novyye izvestiya journalist Ivan Zubov says, that this pattern shows that young Russians are now ready to turn from an aging Orthodoxy to a younger and more vigorous Islam as a source of values (newizv.ru/news/2024-08-15/islam-nastupaet-pochemu-eta-religiya-stanovitsya-vse-populyarnee-v-rossii-432603).
On this trend, Zubov cites the observations of Christian publicism Maksim Dakhov that ever more young Russians are turning away from Orthodoxy because they do not find it providing them with the inspiration they need and becoming Muslims instead (christian-spirit.ru/561-pochemu-russkaya-molodezh).
Neither Zubov nor Dakhov provide any statistics of such a trend, offering instead anecdotal stories about individual cases. But apparently even these have become sufficiently numerous to spark concern in the ROC MP and its supporters, a fear that may lead them to press for new restrictions on Islamic missionary activity.
Both because of fears about the way in which such converts would boost the Muslim share of the Russian population and because those converting to Islam might be among the most radical of the faithful, Moscow analysts have long worried about even a few Russians becoming Muslims (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/02/ethnic-russian-muslims-increasing.html).
But now those fears on both grounds appear to be increasing, and both the Moscow Patriarchate and the Kremlin are taking notice and likely to act to try to prevent any more Orthodox Russians from converting to Islam.
No comments:
Post a Comment