By Carrie Brown McWhorter
The Alabama Baptist
The number of people identifying as Christian has almost doubled in Russia since the fall of Communism. However, concerns remain about general apathy toward religious practice and tighter restrictions on religious liberty.
A recent study by Pew Research Center found that a solid majority of adults across much of the region say they believe in God and most identify with a religion. Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism are the most prevalent religious affiliations, with the number of Orthodox Christians in Russia rising to 71 percent, up from 37 percent in 1991 when the Communist-governed Soviet Union dissolved into 15 separate countries.
Orthodox Christianity
The Pew survey of more than 25,000 adults ages 18 and older in 18 countries in Central and Eastern Europe estimates that 57 percent of people living in the region identify as Orthodox. Catholics make up about 18 percent of the region’s population, including majorities of adults in Poland, Croatia, Lithuania and Hungary.
Approximately 10 percent of Russians are Muslim, though Islam dominates in several Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union, including Tajikistan (95.9 percent), Turkmenistan (94.9 percent) and Uzbekistan (80.9 percent).
The number of people who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” also has fallen in Russia and across the region.
Evangelicals represent a small presence in the region.
According to the Joshua Project, only 1.22 percent of the Russian population is evangelical. Estonia (4.46 percent) and Latvia (6.38 percent) have a slightly higher percentage of evangelicals than others in the region.
This rise in Orthodox Christianity has not been accompanied by high levels of church attendance, however. In Russia only 6 percent said they attend religious services at least weekly. Regionally about 10 percent of Orthodox Christians say they go to church on a weekly basis.
Comparision to Muslims
The general lack of participation in religious activities also is common among Muslims in the former Soviet bloc countries. A 2012 study by Pew found relatively low levels of religious belief and practice among Muslims in the region compared with Muslims elsewhere in the world.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region experienced an openness to religion and evangelism, both of which were outlawed under communist rule. Christianity, including the Russian Orthodox Church, Islam and Judaism were given privileged status in post-Communist Russia, according to researcher and author Vitaliy Proshak, an adviser with the Religious Freedom Initiative of Mission Eurasia, in an article published at IMB.org in January 2017.
“A formerly homogeneous society with dominating atheistic ideology gradually developed into a democratic society that accepted the existence of religious and cultural differences,” Proshak wrote.
Increased threats
However, threats to religious liberty in Russia have increased in the last decade, Proshak says. Laws passed in 2016 are especially troublesome because they ban “proselytizing, preaching, praying or disseminating religious materials outside of ‘specially designated places.’” As a result, home group meetings where a Russian believer might speak about his or her faith would be punishable crimes because the home would not be an approved public space for worship.
“The door for evangelism in Russia is still open,” Proshak says, but Christians in the region need prayer and support as they wrestle with the impact of these laws and determine how to be both a good citizen and a good Christian.
In Russia and other Eastern European countries this is an important question, since the recent Pew study found that in many Central and Eastern European countries religion and national identity are closely entwined. This is true in former communist states, such as the Russian Federation and Poland, where majorities say that being Orthodox or Catholic is important to being “truly Russian” or “truly Polish.”
It also is the case in Greece, where the church played a central role in Greece’s successful struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire and where today three-quarters of the public (76 percent) say that being Orthodox is important to being “truly Greek.”
Perhaps as a result, many people in these countries support strong church-state ties. Roughly a third or more of respondents in every Orthodox-majority country surveyed say government policies should support the spread of religious values and beliefs in their country. They also expressed strong support for government financial assistance to their national Orthodox church.
As evangelism efforts continue in the wake of tighter government control, Proshak urges believers worldwide to pray for the region and the Church in Eurasia.
Ethical understanding
“Through the prophet Jeremiah, God taught Israel to pray for the well-being of the city while not conforming to the ways of the city,” Proshak writes, referring to Jeremiah 29.
“Likewise, a Russian believer must develop a personal ethical understanding of how to conform to the legal obligation of the new anti-extremism law while continuing to share the faith.”
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