Religion in China
The most accurate criterion to count religious populations in Russia is that of “self-identification”, which allows to count also those people who identify themselves with a given religion but do not actually practise it. In 2015, the International Social Survey Programme estimated that 79.4% of Russians were Christians (78.3% Orthodox, 0.9% Catholics and 0.2% Protestants), 14.0% were not religious, 6.2% were Muslims, 0.1% were religious Jews, 0.1% were Hindus, and 0.3% belonged to other religions. In 2015, the Pew Research Center estimated that 71% of Russians were Orthodox Christians, 15% were not religious, 10% were Muslim, 2% were Christians of other denominations, and 1% belonged to other religions. The 2017 Survey Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe made by the Pew Research Center showed that 73% of Russians declared themselves Christians-including 71% Orthodox, 1% Catholic, and 2% Other Christians, while 15% were unaffiliated, 10% were Muslims, and 1% were from other religions. In 2022, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) found that 68% of Russians identified as Orthodox Christians, 1% were Protestants, 6% were Muslims, 4% belonged to other religions, 20% had no religion in particular and 1% were unsure about their belief.
The ethnic principle is sometimes misused to deliberately inflate the prevalence of certain religions, especially the larger ones, for political aims. This principle provides a picture of how much given ideas and outlooks are widespread among the people. It has been found that between 0.5% and 2% of people in big cities attend Easter services, and overall just between 2% and 10% of the total population (3 to 15 million people) are actively practising Orthodox Christians. In 2016, Ipsos Global Trends, a multi-nation survey held by Ipsos and based on approximately 1,000 interviews, found that Christianity is the religion of 63% of the working-age, internet connected population of Russia; 62% stated they were Orthodox Christians, and 1% stated they were Catholic. Evangelicalism and Catholicism (among Russians) are relatively recent additions to Christianity in Russia. In 2008, the International Social Survey Programme estimated that 72% of the Russians were Orthodox, 18% were not religious, and 6% adhered to other religions.
In 2013, the Russian Academy of Sciences estimated that 79% of Russians were Orthodox Christians, 4% were Muslims, 9% were spiritual but not identifying themselves with any religion and 7% were atheists. 67% of Russians were Christians. Russia. There has been an “exponential increase in new religious groups and alternative spiritualities”, Eastern religions and Neopaganism, even among self-defined “Christians”-a term which has become a loose descriptor for a variety of eclectic views and practices. The People’s Republic of China’s five officially sanctioned religious organizations are the Buddhist Association of China, Chinese Taoist Association, Islamic Association of China, Three-Self Patriotic Movement and Catholic Patriotic Association. Russia has been defined by the scholar Eliot Borenstein as the “Southern California of Europe” because of such a blossoming of new religious movements, and the latter are perceived by the Russian Orthodox Church as competitors in a “war for souls”. In 2018, according to a study jointly conducted by London’s St Mary’s University’s Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society and the Institut Catholique de Paris, and based on data from the European Social Survey 2014-2016, Christianity is declining in Russia like in Western Europe. As recalled by the Primary Chronicle, Orthodox Christianity was made the state religion of Kievan Rus’ in 987 by Vladimir the Great, who opted for it among other possible choices as it was the religion of the Byzantine Empire.
I thank Almighty God for the blessings he has bestowed upon you and your fellow citizens, and I pray that the links that bind Christians and Muslims in their profound reverence for the one God will continue to grow stronger, so that they will reflect more clearly the wisdom of the Almighty, who enlightens the hearts of all mankind. However, people who did not respond were not counted. However, whether for small or larger groups, this approach may lead to gross mistakes. This principle is often used to estimate the magnitude of very small groups, for instance Finnish Lutheranism at 63,000, assuming that all the 34,000 Finns and 28,000 Estonians of Russia are believers in their historical religion; or German Lutheranism at 400,000, assuming that all Germans in Russia believe in their historical religion. So these small groups of people, living in isolation from one another, agreed on names for their tools and food, and they came up with ways to describe how resources would be divided. It is evident that unless there be some pre-existing tendency to believe in Masses and holy water, the option offered to the will by Pascal is not a living option. The clergy thus divided itself into two factions: the Holy Synod led by Maxim, and another synod headed by Pimen of Nevrokop, whom in 1996 was elected by a schismatic council as a rival Patriarch.