After Falling from 80 Percent in 2010 to 65 Percent in 2020, 73 Percent of Russia’s Residents Now Tell Levada Center They’re Orthodox

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 28 – The independent Levada Center polling agency says that the percentage of Russia’s residents who say they are Orthodox has rebounded from its decline between 2010 and 2020 when this figure dropped from 80 percent to 65 percent and now stands at 73 percent.

            That rapid up-and-down pattern contrasts sharply with the share of the Russian population who declare affiliation with other faiths at more or less the same level throughout this period. Six percent of the population declare themselves to be followers of Islam, for example (levada.ru/2025/10/28/religioznye-predpochteniya-rossiyan/).

            And it strongly suggests that those in the Russian Federation who say they are Orthodox at any particular point, in contrast to those who declare another faith, are swayed less by any change in religious belief than to the insistence of Russian leaders and propagandists, stronger on some occasions than at others, that to be a “real” Russian is to be Orthodox.