Religion in Russia

religion in russia 2014

  No religion (86.7%)

  Christianity (9.8%)

  Tengrism (2.2%)

  Other religions (1.7%)

St. Basil's Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow is a World Heritage Site.

Christianity is the most widely professed faith in Russia, with significant minorities of other faiths.

Russia is officially an Irreligious country, while it recognizes"Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and other religions and creeds which constitute an inseparable part of the historical heritage of Russia's peoples", including ethnic religions or paganism, either preserved, or revived.

Overview

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow

Russia has the most Irreligious people in the world, known for its high religion ban for over centuries, the influence of Christianity is thin, while it's the most professed religion in the country where there has been a perceptible revival, According to the 2014 Russian law; you can believe or practice any religion, on the other hand religious drawing and talking religious in public is not allowed.

privileged religion of the state, claiming the right to decide which other religions or denominations are to be granted the right of registration. Some Protestant churches which were already in existence before the Russian Revolution have been unable to re-register, and the Catholic Church has been forbidden to develop its own territorial jurisdictions. According to some Western observers, respect for freedom of religion by Russian authorities has declined since the late 1990s and early 2000s. For example, the activities of the Jehovah's Witnesses are currently banned in Russia. According to International Christian Concern, during 2021 "crackdowns on religious freedom have intensified in Russia."

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has been a revival and spread of Siberian shamanism (often mixed with Orthodox elements), and the emergence of Hinduism and new religious movements throughout 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. 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". However, the multiplicity of religions in Russia has been a traditional component of Russian identities for hundreds of years, contributing to a long-established ethno-cultural pluralism.

One of the 2020 amendments to the Constitution of Russia has a Constitutional references to God.

History

The Baptism of Rus' (1885–1896), by Viktor Vasnetsov.

Further information: Slavic paganism, Christianisation of Kievan Rus', and religion in the Soviet Union

Before the tenth century, Russians practised Slavic religion. 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. Since then, religion, mysticism, and statehood remained intertwined elements in Russia's identity. The Russian Orthodox Church, perceived as the glue consolidating the nation, accompanied the expansion of the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. Czar Nicholas I's ideology, under which the empire reached its widest extent, proclaimed "Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nation" (Pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost') as its foundations. The dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church was sealed by law, and, as the empire incorporated peoples of alternative creeds, religions were tied to ethnicities to skirt any issue of integration. Until 1905, only the Russian Orthodox Church could engage in missionary activity to convert non-Orthodox people, and apostasy was treated as an offense punishable by law. Catholicism, Islam and other religions were tolerated only among outsider (inoroditsy) peoples but forbidden from spreading among Russians.

Throughout the history of early and imperial Russia there were, however, religious movements which posed a challenge to the monopoly of the Russian Orthodox Church and put forward stances of freedom of conscience, namely the Old Believers—who separated from the Russian Orthodox Church after Patriarch Nikon's reform in 1653 (the Raskol)—, and Spiritual Christianity (or Molokanism). It is worth noting that the Russian Orthodox Church itself never forbade personal religious experience and speculative mysticism, and Gnostic elements had become embedded in Orthodox Christianity since the sixth century, and later strengthened by the popularity of Jakob Böhme's thought in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Orthodox seminaries.

By the end of the eighteenth century, dvoeverie ("double faith"), popular religion which preserved Slavic pantheism under a Christianised surface, found appreciation among intellectuals who tried to delineate Russian distinctiveness against the West. On April 17, 1905, Tsar Nicholas II decreed that religious minorities had the right to publicly celebrate their respective liturgies. At the dawn of the twentieth century, esoteric and occult philosophies and movements, including Spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Hermeticism, Russian cosmism and others, became widespread. At the same time the empire had begun to make steps towards the recognition of the multiplicity of religions that it had come to encompass, but they came to an abrupt end with the Russian Revolution in 1917. After the revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church lost its privileges, as did all minority religions, and the new state verged towards an atheist official ideology. Under the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church lived periods of repression and periods of support and cooptation by the state. Despite the policies of state atheism, censuses reported a high religiosity among the population; in 1929, 80% of the population were believers, and in 1937 two-thirds described themselves as believers, of whom three-fourths as Orthodox Christians. The Russian Orthodox Church was supported under Joseph Stalin in the 1940s, after the Second World War, then heavily suppressed under Nikita Khrushchev in the 1960s, and then revived again by the 1980s. While it was legally reconstituted only in 1949, throughout the Soviet period the church functioned as an arm of the KGB; many hierarchs of the post-Soviet church were former KGB agents, as demonstrated by the opening of KGB archives in the 1990s.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1987–1991, the Russian Orthodox Church has struggled to regain its erstwhile monopoly of religious life, despite it and other Christian churches which existed since before the Revolution have found themselves in a radically transformed context characterised by a religious pluralism unknown before 1917. During the Soviet period, religious barriers were shattered, as religions were no longer tied to ethnicity and family tradition, and an extensive displacement of peoples took place. This, together with the more recent swift ongoing development of communications, has resulted in an unprecedented mingling of different religious cultures. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a renewal of religions in Russia, with the revival of the traditional faiths and the emergence of new forms within the traditional faiths as well as many new religious movements. The amendments of 2020 to the constitution added, in the Article 67, the continuity of the Russian state in history based on preserving "the memory of the ancestors" and general "ideals and belief in God" which the ancestors conveyed.

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  Saint George and the Dragon, 16th-century icon from Pskov.
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  The Trinity (1729), icon by an unknown artist from Tobolsk.
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  The Rebellion of Solovetsky Monastery (1885), by Sergey Miloradovich.
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  Group of Molokans, 1870s.
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  Circle of young atheists at a school in Murom, 1930s.

Study approaches

Syncretic Temple of All Religions in Kazan.

In the study of religions in Russia, the "ethnic principle" is based on the assumption that the entire number of people belonging to a given ethnic group are adherents of that group's traditional religion. 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. However, whether for small or larger groups, this approach may lead to gross mistakes.

The ethnic principle is sometimes misused to deliberately inflate the prevalence of certain religions, especially the larger ones, for political aims. For instance, Islamic and Orthodox leaders routinely claim that their religions have respectively 20 million and 120 million adherents in Russia, by counting all the individuals belonging to the ethnic groups which historically belonged to these religions. By applying the ethnic principle, people who are indifferent to religion or are outspoken atheists, those who have converted to a different faith to that assigned by nationality, and people who participate in religions which historically have not been associated to specific ethnic groups in Russia—namely Old Believers, new Russian converts to Protestantism, Catholicism and Eastern religions, and others—are automatically excluded from the calculations.

Another criterion to count religious populations in Russia is that of "religious observance". Based on this principle, very few Russians would be religious. 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. The proportion of practising Muslims among ethnic groups which are historically Islamic is larger, 40% to 90% depending on the group, and yet smaller than any assumption based on the ethnic principle.

Trinity Sunday in Russia; the Orthodox Church has experienced a great revival since the fall of communism.

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. This principle provides a picture of how much given ideas and outlooks are widespread among the people. Nevertheless, it has been noted that different people often give different meanings to the same identity markers; for instance, large percentages of people who self-identify as "Orthodox" have been found to believe that God is a "life force", to believe in reincarnation, astral connections, and other New Age ideas.

Another method that has sometimes been used to determine the magnitude of religions in Russia is to count the number of their officially registered organisations. Such criterion, however, leads to inaccurate assumptions for various reasons. There is not the same arithmetic relationship between religions' number of local organisations and the number of their believers, as different religions have different organisational structures. Furthermore, different religions have different attitudes towards the registration of their organisations, and secular authorities register some without difficulties while hinder the registration of others. For instance, the Russian Orthodox Church is eager to register its communities when they are still at the embryonal stage, and many of them are actually inactive; the Old Believers traditionally do not consider registration as essential, and some branches reject it in principle; and Protestant churches have the largest number of unregistered congregations, probably around ten thousand, most of them extremely small groups, and while many denominations discourage registration, they often also face a negative disposition from secular authorities.

Demographics

Mapping of religions and life stances in Russia (Arena Atlas Survey, 2012)

Russian Orthodox Church

Muslims

Nondenominational Christians

Pagans and Tengrists

Buddhists

Hindus

Spiritual, but do not profess a particular religion

Atheists

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  Mosque in Dzerzhinsk.
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  Qolsharif Mosque in Kazan.
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  Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque in Grozny.
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  Mosque in Kinzebulatovo.
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  Mosque in Kuluyevo, along the Miass River, in Chelyabinsk.

Judaism

Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue in Moscow.

Further information: History of the Jews in Russia

In 2012 there were 140,000 religious Jews in Russia, while the number of ethnic Jews was significantly larger. Indeed, most ethnic Jews in Russia are not Jewish by religion, Judaism being the religion of just a minority of ethnic Jews; most of them are atheists and not religious, many are Christians, and a significant proportion of them are Buddhists. According to the Arena Atlas survey In 2012, only 13% of ethnic Jews believed in Judaism, 13% were Orthodox Christians, 4% simply Christians, 27% atheists, 25% believers but not affiliated with an organized religion, 4% Buddhists and 3% Pagans. Religious Jews were mostly concentrated in Kamchatka Krai (0.4%), Saint Petersburg (0.4%), Kursk Oblast (0.4%), Khabarovsk Krai (0.3%), Stavropol Krai (0.3%), Buryatia (0.2%), the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (0.2%), Kalmykia (0.2%) and Kabardino-Balkaria (0.2%).

Ethnic and shamanic religions, paganism and Tengrism

Further information: Slavic Native Faith, Assianism, Tengrism, Caucasian Neopaganism, Uralic Neopaganism, and Shamanism in Siberia

Rodnovers gathered at the Temple of Svarozhich's Fire of the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities, in Krasotinka, Kaluga Oblast, to celebrate Perun Day.

People in circle around the big candle for Rasjken Ozks, the major festival of Mordvin Native Faith.

Paganism and Tengrism, counted together as "traditional religions of the forefathers" were the third-largest religious group after Christianity and Islam, with 1,700,000 believers or 1.2% of the total population of Russia in 2012. These religions are protected under the 1997 law, whose commentary specifies that "other religions and creeds which constitute an inseparable part of the historical heritage of Russia's peoples" also applies to "ancient Pagan cults, which have been preserved or are being revived". Tengrism is a term which encompasses the traditional ethnic and shamanic religions of the Turkic and Mongolic peoples, and modern movements reviving them in Russia. Paganism in Russia is primarily represented by the revival of the ethnic religions of the Russian Slavic people and communities, the Ossetians (Scythian), but also by those of Caucasian and Finno-Ugric ethnic minorities.

In 2012, Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery), Caucasian Neopaganism, and Ossetian Assianism were represented by significant numbers of believers in North Ossetia–Alania (29%), Karachay-Cherkessia (12%), Kabardino-Balkaria (3%), Orenburg Oblast (over 3%), Kemerovo Oblast (over 3%), 2% to 3% in Dagestan, Astrakhan Oblast, Kaluga Oblast, Tyumen Oblast, Irkutsk Oblast and Magadan Oblast. The Slavic Native Faith was also present in many of the federal subjects of Western Russia in percentages ranging between 1% and 2%.

Rodnovery alone represented 44% of the followers of the "traditional religions of the forefathers", thus approximately 750,000 people. Rodnover organisations include the Union of Slavic Rodnover (Native Faith) Communities headquartered in Kaluga. The Moscow Community was the first to be registered by the state in 1994. Russian Rodnovers believe in Rod, the supreme God, and in lesser deities who include Perun and Dazhbog. Russian centers of Rodnovery are situated also in Dolgoprudny, Pskov and other cities, and Moscow has several shrines.

Uralic Neopaganism is practised by the Finnic ethnic minorities (primarily the Mari, the Mordvins, the Udmurts and the Komi). Among these peoples, paganism survived as an unbroken tradition throughout the Soviet period. The Mari Native Faith was practised by 6% of the population of Mari El in 2012. Other studies reported a higher proportion of 15%. Paganism was practised by between 2% and 3% of the population of Udmurtia (Udmurt Vos) and Perm Krai, and by between 1% and 2% of the population of the Komi Republic.

There are Rodnover groups that mix Finnic and Slavic elements, while other Rodnover organisations also cater to people who follow Scandinavian (Heathen) and Greek (Hellenic) traditions.

Paganism is supported by the governments of some federal subjects, for instance Mari El. Although paganism often faces the hostility of the Orthodox clergy, Patriarch Alexy II stressed that Protestant missionaries pose a greater danger than ethnic religions, and the latter should be respected. Pagans have faced violence in some Islamic regions of the Caucasus. For instance, Aslan Tsipinov was murdered by Islamists in 2010, in Kabardino-Balkaria. Months before his death, Tsipinov was intimated by the extremists to stop his work of popularisation of Circassian (Kabardian) Pagan rituals.

Tengrism and Turco-Mongol shamanic religions are found primarily in Siberia and the Russian Far East. In 2012, 13% of the inhabitants of the Altai Republic believed in indigenous religions—which include Burkhanism or "White Faith"—, like 13% in Yakutia, 8% in Tuva, 3% in Kalmykia, between 2% and 3% in Khakassia, Buryatia and Kamchatka. The Arena Atlas did not count the population of Chukotka, where much of the Chukchi practise their indigenous religion.

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  Buryat shaman Budazhap Shiretorov, head of the Altan Serge religious community.
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  Ossetian Rekom Temple in the Tsey area, Alaginsky.
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  Mordvin ritual performance.
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  College of Mari priests (kart).
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  Russian Rodnover shrine in Kaluga.
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  An altar for Rökkatru Heathenry of a Russian Heathen practitioner.

Eastern and Iranian religions

Main articles: Eastern religions and Iranian religions

See also: Indian religions and East Asian religions

Buddhism

Russian dharmachakra illustrated in the essay entitled Apology of Russian Buddhism published by B. S. Grechin, the leader of an ethnic Russian Buddhist monastery in Yaroslavl, in 2016.

Main article: Buddhism in Russia

In 2012, Buddhism was practised by 700,000 people in Russia, or 0.5% of the total population. It is the traditional religion of some Turkic and Mongolic ethnic groups in Russia such as (the Kalmyks, the Buryats and the Tuvans). In 2012 it was the religion of 62% of the total population of Tuva, 38% of Kalmykia and 20% of Buryatia. Buddhism also has believers accounting for 6% in Zabaykalsky Krai, primarily consisting in ethnic Buryats, and of 0.5% to 0.9% in Tomsk Oblast and Yakutia. Buddhist communities may be found in other federal subjects of Russia, between 0.1% and 0.5% in Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, Irkutsk Oblast, Altay, Khakassia, Novosibirsk Oblast, Tomsk Oblast, Tyumen Oblast, Orenburg Oblast, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Murmansk Oblast, Moscow and Moscow Oblast, Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, and in Kaliningrad Oblast. In cities like Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Samara, often up to 1% of the population identify as Buddhists.

Buddhism in Russia is almost exclusively of the Tibetan Vajrayana schools, especially Gelug but increasingly also Nyingma and Kagyu (Diamond Way Buddhism). There are many Russian converts, and the newer schools have been often criticised by representatives of the Gelug as the result of a Russianised (Rossiysky) Buddhism and of Western Buddhist missionaries.

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  Kalmyk Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume in Elista.
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  Pavilions of the Buryat Ivolginsky Datsan in Ivolginsk.
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  Visitors at Ustuu-Huree, a Tuvan Buddhist monastery in Chadan.
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  Datsan Gunzechoinei in Saint Petersburg, the northernmost Buddhist temple in Russia.

Hinduism

Main article: Hinduism in Russia

Hinduism, especially in the forms of Krishnaism, Vedism and Tantrism, but also in other forms, has gained a following among Russians since the end of the Soviet period, primarily through the missionary work of itinerant gurus and swamis, and organisations like the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and the Brahma Kumaris. The Tantra Sangha originated in Russia itself. The excavation of an ancient idol representing Vishnu in the Volga region in 2007 fueled the interest for Hinduism in Russia.

However, Russian Hare Krishna face the hostility of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2011, prosecutors in Tomsk unsuccessfully tried to outlaw the Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is, the central text of the Krishnaite movement, on charge of extremism. Russian Krishnaites in Moscow have long struggled for the construction of a large Krishna temple in the capital, which would compensate premises which were assigned to them in 1989 and later confiscated for municipal construction plans; the allocation of land for the temple has been repeatedly hindered and delayed, and Archbishop Nikon of Ufa asked the secular authorities to prevent the construction "in the very heart of Orthodox Russia" of an "idolatrous heathen temple to Krishna". In August 2016, the premises of the Divya Loka monastery, a Vedic monastery founded in 2001 in Nizhny Novgorod, were dismantled by local authorities after having been declared illegal in 2015.

Hinduism in Russia was practised by 140,000 people, or 0.1% of the total population, in 2012. It constituted 2% of the population in the Altai Republic, 0.5% in Samara Oblast, 0.4% in Khakassia, Kalmykia, Bryansk Oblast, Kamchatka, Kurgan Oblast, Tyumen Oblast, Chelyabinsk Oblast, 0.3% in Sverdlovsk Oblast, 0.2% to 0.3% in Yamalia, Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, Rostov Oblast, Sakhalin Oblast, and 0.1% to 0.2% in other federal subjects.

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  Hare Krishna in Moscow celebrating Ratha Yatra.
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  Crowds celebrating Ratha Yatra in Moscow.
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  Hare Krishna devotees in the streets of Moscow.
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  Hare Krishna devotees distributing vegetarian meals.

Sikhism

Main article: Sikhism in Russia

Sikhism is practised in Russia by a number of immigrants from the Indian state of Punjab and from Afghanistan, though there is a small number of Russian converts. There are three Sikh organisations in Russia: the "Gurudwara Komiti" of Moscow, catering to Afghan-Indian Sikhs, founded in the 1990s and officially registered in 2000; "Amrit Nam Sarovar", an international orthodox Sikh missionary organisation which teaches Kundalini Yoga; and "Radhasoami Satsang Beas", an international unorthodox Sikh organisation which believes in its own living teachers.

Taoism

Taoism in Russia is practised by Chinese immigrants and some Russian converts. It started to be disseminated in Russia after the end of the Soviet Union, particularly through the work of Master Alex Anatole, a Russian himself and Taoist priest, founder of the Center of Traditional Taoist Studies, which has been active in Moscow since 2002. The "Victor Xiao's Studio of Taiji" in Moscow represents Longmen Taoism. Another branch present in Russia is Wuliu Taoism, headquartered in Saint Petersburg as the "Dao De Taoist Centre" since 1993, with branches in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don and Nizhny Novgorod. The "Shen Taoist Centre", headquartered in Moscow, with branches in Novosibirsk and Krasnodar, is a branch of the international organisation "Universal Healing Tao" of Mantak Chia.

Yazidism

Yazidism is practised by a minority that established itself in Russia already during the Russo-Turkish wars and especially during the First World War, though their number has grown in the 2010s with new immigrants from Iraq fleeing anti-Yazidi persecution by Muslims. Yazidi communities are registered in Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Tula, Ulyanovsk, Yaroslavl and Krasnodar Krai. In 2016, the Research Institute of Yazidi History and Religion was established as a branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is practised in Russia by a number of recent Russian converts, though the religion was historically influent in the region of the Northern Caucasus, among the Scythians and later in Alania and Caucasian Albania. There are two Russian Zoroastrian organisations: the "Zoroastrian Community of Saint Petersburg" registered in 1994 and originally founded at the beginning of the 1990s by Pavel Globa as the "Avestan School of Astrology"; and the "Russian Anjoman", headquartered in Moscow with branches in several other cities, that collaborates with the "Anjoman Bozorg Bazgasht", an organisation of Iranian Zoroastrian immigrants in Europe. The Russian Anjoman calls its faith "Blagovery", and in general Zoroastrianism in Russia has close links with Rodnovery.

New religious and spiritual movements

Further information: New religious movement, New Age, and Scientology in Russia

In modern Russia, "all kinds of occult, Pagan and pseudo-Christian faiths are widespread". Some of them are "disciplined organisations with a well-defined membership". The scholars of religion Sergei Filatov and Roman Lunkin, estimated in the mid-2000s that well-organised new religious movements had about 300,000 members. Nevertheless, well-organised movements constitute only "a drop in the 'new religious' ocean". Most of them are indeed "amorphous, eclectic and fluid", difficult to measure, concerned with health, healing, and lifestyle, made up of fragments borrowed from Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and yoga. According to Filatov and Lunkin, these movements, albeit mostly unorganised, represent a "self-contained system" rather than a "transitional stage on the way to some other religion".

Native new religious movements of Russia are Bazhovism, Ivanovism, Roerichism, Ringing Cedars' Anastasianism, and others. The Fourth Way, the Theosophical Society, and the Anthroposophical Society are also represented. Roerichism, which was started before the perestroika, is a paradigmatic example of a movement which adapts Eastern religious beliefs to the conditions of contemporary Russia. It is not a centrally structured movement, but takes the form of a dust of clubs and associations. Another movement, Ivanovism, is a system of healing through cold and relationship between humanity and nature founded by the mystic Porfiry Ivanov (1898–1983), called "messenger of the Cosmos" by his followers. His disciples, the Ivanovites, are recognisable by their lightweight clothing and sandals worn in winter. Ringing Cedars' Anastasianism is a new religious, spiritual, and social movement close to Rodnovery that began in 1997 in Central Russia, based on the series of ten books entitled The Ringing Cedars of Russia written by Vladimir Megre. Other movements rely upon astrology, which is believed by about 60% of Russians, emphasising the imminent start of the Age of Aquarius, the end of the world as it is currently known, and the formation of a superior "Aquarian race".

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  International Center of the Roerichs in Moscow.
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  Mother of the World (1924), Nicholas Roerich.
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  Agni Yoga (1928–1930), Nicholas Roerich.
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  Golod pyramid under construction in Bolshoye Sidelnikovo, Sverdlovsk Oblast.
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  Church of Scientology in Moscow.

Freedom of religion

Main article: Freedom of religion in Russia

Russian religious leaders (Armenian, Judaic, Muslim, Buddhist, Orthodox, Old Believer) during the official celebrations of the National Unity Day, 4 November 2012

According to some Western commentators, respect for freedom of religion by secular authorities has declined in Russia since the late 1990s and early 2000s. In addition, the government continues to grant privileges to the Russia Orthodox Church not accorded to any other church or religious association. In 2006, a Mari Pagan priest, Vitaly Tanakov, was successfully convicted of extremism and sentenced to 120 hours of compulsory labour for having published a politico-religious tract, A Priest Speaks (Onajeng Ojla), which in 2009 was added to the federal list of material deemed "extremist".

In 2011 there was an unsuccessful attempt to ban the Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is on the same charge. In August 2016, the premises of a Vedic monastery founded in 2001 in Nizhny Novgorod were demolished by local authorities after having been declared illegal in 2015. It has been observed that the categories of "extremist" and "totalitarian sect" have been consistently used to try to outlaw religious groups which the Russian Orthodox Church classifies as "not traditional", including the newest Protestant churches and Jehovah's Witnesses. There is a ban of Jehovah's Witnesses activities in Russia.

In 2017, a report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stated that: "The Russian government views independent religious activity as a major threat to social and political stability, an approach inherited from the Soviet period". Thus, for the first time, the USCIRF classified Russia as one of the world's worst violators of freedom of religion, a "country of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act. The report also affirmed that Russia "is the sole state to have not only continually intensified its repression of religious freedom ..., but also to have expanded its repressive policies. ...Those policies, ranging from administrative harassment to arbitrary imprisonment to extrajudicial killing, are implemented in a fashion that is systematic, ongoing, and egregious". Many other countries and international organizations have spoken out on Russia's religious abuses.

Bhagavad Gita trial

Main article: Bhagavad Gita trial in Russia

Alexander Shakov, the representative of the defense for the Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is, holding a copy of the book at the first court hearing in 2011.

In 2011, a group linked to the Russian Orthodox Church demanded a ban of the Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is, the book of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, in Tomsk Oblast, on charge of extremism. The case was eventually dismissed by the federal judge on 28 December 2011.

The Russian ambassador Alexander Kadakin condemned the "madmen" who sought the ban, and underlined that Russia is a secular country. To protest the attempted ban, 15,000 Indians in Moscow, and followers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness throughout Russia, appealed to the government of India asking an intervention to resolve the issue. The move triggered strong protests by members of the Parliament of India who wanted the government to take a strong position. The final court hearing in Tomsk was then scheduled on 28 December, after the court agreed to seek the opinion of the Tomsk ombudsman on human rights and of Indologists from Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

See also

Media related to Religion in Russia at Wikimedia Commons

• Anti-Semitism in Russia
• Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union
• Bahá'í Faith in Russia
• Consecration of Russia
• Irreligion in Russia
• Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union

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• Tkatcheva, Anna (1994). "Neo-Hindu Movements and Orthodox Christianity in Post-Communist Russia". India International Centre Quarterly. 21 (2/3): 151–162. JSTOR 23003642.
• Uzzell, Lawrence (2000). "Advancing Freedom of Belief in Russia". In Vanden Heuvel, William (ed.). The Future of Freedom in Russia. Templeton Foundation Press. ISBN 9781890151430.
• Znamenski, Andrei A. (2003). "Records of Siberian Spirituality in Present-Day Russia". Shamanism in Siberia. Springer. pp. 279–358. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0277-5_4. ISBN 9789048164844.

Further reading

• Bourdeaux, Michael; Filatov, Sergey, eds. (2003–2006). Современная религиозная жизнь России. Опыт систематического описания [Contemporary religious life of Russia. Systematic description of experiences] (in Russian). Vol. 1–4. Keston Institute. Moscow: Logos.
• Popov, Igor (2016). Справочник всех религиозных течений и объединений в России [The Reference Book on All Religious Branches and Communities in Russia] (in Russian).

External links

• Quotations related to Religion in Russia at Wikiquote
• 2020 International Religious Freedom Report [1]