.jpg "Declarative Orthodoxy: After ten years of Orthodox propaganda, Russia remains a country with low levels of religiosity and the least religious of all Orthodox countries")
Declarative Orthodoxy: After ten years of Orthodox propaganda, Russia remains a country with low levels of religiosity and the least religious of all Orthodox countries
The construction of a 'traditionalist nation' opposed to the West has become the main ideological agenda of Russian authoritarianism since Putin’s problematic return to the presidency in 2012. Today, Orthodoxy serves as a significant component of the official ideology, and the top Russian elite seeks to display its religious commitment and even a certain degree of religious fanaticism.
At the same time, while religiosity in Russia has increased somewhat over the past ten years, it has largely remained at a declarative level. Identifying as Orthodox and religious has become a social norm. This is most typical of the 'Soviet' generation, i.e. those over 60 years old, who account for a third of all those who identify as Orthodox. Among younger Russians, fewer than half consider themselves Orthodox, and about 40% do not consider themselves religious at all.
Young Russians show not only greater indifference toward religion but also more scepticism toward the Russian Orthodox Church. Among the general population, trust in the Church remains relatively high, though it has been declining.
In comparative terms, Russia ranks as a country with low religiosity. Among the 92 countries included in the most recent wave of the World Values Survey, it appears in the upper segment of the bottom third in terms of religiosity. Ten years ago, the figures were even lower – comparable to those of the most secular European nations. In terms of church attendance, Russia today is on par with Finland and Germany.
Among all Orthodox countries, Russia also stands out for its low levels of religiosity, trailing not only behind highly religious nations such as Georgia, Armenia, Greece, and Romania, but also behind relatively secular countries like Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Belarus.
At the same time, the level of trust in the Church as an institution in Russia is higher than in countries with a comparable degree of religiosity, while attendance at church services is significantly lower. These discrepancies highlight the true nature of religiosity in Russia: it is largely declarative, functioning more as an element of state ideology than as a genuine spiritual practice.
Declarative religiosity: the elite, pensioners and young people
The construction of a 'traditionalist nation' set in opposition to the West became the central ideological agenda of Russian authoritarianism following Putin’s troubled return to the presidency in 2012, and especially after the annexation of Crimea, when anti-Western sentiment was elevated into a core ideological tenet of the regime. Orthodoxy now plays a significant role in the official state ideology, with footage of the president in church forming an obligatory part of the propagandistic television ritual. The top bureaucratic elite seeks to display their religious observance, and in some cases, even a degree of religious fanaticism. Religious study groups and pilgrimages are increasingly used as mechanisms for consolidating elite circles, having effectively replaced former bonding rituals such as shared ski holidays in Courchevel. The promotion of Orthodoxy as a 'confession of identity' contributes to a rise in declarative religiosity among the population. Nevertheless, Russia remains one of the least religious countries in the world.
According to the Levada Centre, the proportion of people stating that religion plays a very important or fairly important role in their lives was 30–32% between 2007 and 2012, 34% from 2013 to 2016, rose to 40% between 2020 and 2023, and unexpectedly jumped to 53% in a 2024 survey – a figure likely to be an outlier, as such large swings are uncharacteristic for this metric.
Based on an Easter-tide poll conducted this April by FOM, 61% of Russians identify as Orthodox. This self-identification correlates significantly with age: 48% of respondents aged 18–30 describe themselves as Orthodox, compared to 69% among those over 60 – that is, individuals born before 1965 who experienced life as both Young Pioneers and Komsomol members. Given that 29% of FOM’s sample consisted of those aged 60 and over, this group accounts for nearly a third of all Orthodox-identifying respondents. At the same time, 37% of young respondents do not consider themselves believers at all (compared to 24% across the entire population).
Among those who identified as Orthodox in the FOM poll, only a quarter regularly observe church rituals (equating to 15% of the full sample). These individuals can to some extent be considered active Orthodox Christians. This is borne out by the Church Engagement Index, based on five criteria: attending church, taking communion, reading scripture, prayer, and fasting. According to this framework, individuals are classified as 'churched' if they score at the highest level in at least one of these areas (e.g. attending services at least monthly or receiving communion monthly or more). The proportion of 'churched' Russians has indeed grown – now at 24%, which is 12 percentage points higher than in 2013. A further 33% fall into the 'semi-churched' category – the same as in 2013.
Thus, 57% of those who identify as Orthodox report at least some level of church engagement, equating to 35% of the full sample. The rest are more accurately described as cultural Christians who do not integrate religious practices into their daily lives. In 2013, 45% considered themselves a part of the Church. Over the past decade of active Orthodox promotion, there has been some expansion in the adoption of religious practices, but it has been modest and mostly limited to less demanding forms. Today, 30% report attending church more than once or twice a year, compared with 26% in 2013. The proportion who take communion more than once a year has risen from 16% to 19%. Only 6% of respondents fast to some extent during Lent, and another 4% during other fasts. These figures have remained essentially unchanged since 2013.
Thus, the observed increase in religiosity is primarily driven by declarative self-identification as Orthodox or religious, with many likely treating this identity as a new social norm. However, shifts in actual religious practice over the past ten years are far more limited, affecting only a small proportion of Russians (roughly 3%).
Young Russians exhibit not only a stronger inclination towards atheism or religious indifference, but also greater scepticism towards the Russian Orthodox Church as an institution. On average, 62% of Russians express trust in the Church, while 17% do not. Among younger Russians, these figures shift to 53% and 24% respectively, according to another April poll by FOM.
Although slightly more respondents (11–12%) have said in recent years that their view of the Church has improved rather than worsened (8%), trust in the Church as an institution shows a subtle downward trend. Between 2014 and 2019, the average trust level stood at 64%; from 2020 to 2025, it has fallen to 61%. Similarly, perceptions of the Church’s impact on public life are becoming more reserved: in 2015–2019, 50% believed the Church had a positive influence; by 2022–2025, that figure had dropped to 45%. Among those aged 18–45, only 36% perceive the Church’s influence as positive, while 40% either see no positive impact or consider it harmful.
Protestants slightly better, Orthodox Christians worst
Although the level of declarative religiosity in Russia has increased, Russians still belong to the cluster of the least religious nations globally.
If we divide the 92 countries that took part in the seventh wave of the World Values Survey (WVS; 2017–2022) into four groups based on religiosity (23 countries in each), Russia sits in the middle of the third group, according to calculations by Re:Russia. The first group, where 88% to 99% of respondents say religion plays a very or fairly important role in their lives, is predominantly made up of Muslim countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and others (though Georgia, an Orthodox country, is also included). In the second group, over two-thirds of respondents consider religion highly important in their lives. This cluster includes, in addition to a number of Muslim countries, some Catholic ones (Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico, Poland), especially in Latin America, as well as several Orthodox-majority countries (Greece, Romania, Cyprus, Serbia).
In the third group, where between 40% and 65% deem religion important, we find countries from various Christian denominations, those with mixed religious landscapes, and some Muslim countries with a strong secular orientation (e.g. Azerbaijan), as well as certain Orthodox countries (such as Bulgaria and Belarus). Russia also falls within this group. Finally, the fourth and least religious group, where only 13–14% (in Japan and China) to 38% (in Germany) of respondents view religion as important, includes some non-Muslim Asian nations and Protestant-majority European states.
Russia remains in the middle of the third group even when using a broader range of religiosity indicators – five questions from the WVS questionnaire (importance of religion, trust in the Church, belief in God, self-assessment of religiosity, and attendance at religious services), according to Re: Russia’s analysis. Compared to the previous WVS wave (2010–2014, in 60 countries), the proportion of Russians who regard religion as important rose from 42% to 49%. These and other shifts in religiosity over the late 2010s and early 2020s allowed Russia to move up from the upper end of the fourth group (previously dominated by Protestant countries) into the third. However, even in the seventh wave, the increase was mainly in declarative religiosity. For instance, the proportion of respondents attending religious services more often rose by less than 3 percentage points. By this measure, Russia trails just behind deeply secularised countries like Germany and Finland.
Furthermore, Russia is the least religious of all Orthodox-majority countries (see table below). In terms of the share of respondents for whom religion is significant, Russia lags not only behind highly religious Orthodox nations such as Georgia, Armenia, Montenegro, Greece, Romania, and Cyprus (where 80–95% say religion is important), but also behind more secular Orthodox states like Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Belarus (where 54–59% still consider religion significant). The same trend holds across other indicators. For instance, in the seventh wave of WVS, only 11% of Russians identified religious faith as an important quality to instill in a child. This is down 3 points from the previous wave. By comparison, around 50% of respondents in Georgia and Romania cited this value, while in Serbia, Armenia, and Greece, it ranged from a quarter to a third. Russia also leads in the number of self-declared atheists.
One particularly striking gap appears in the number of people who never attend church services: in Russia, this figure is 1.5 times higher than in Belarus, which ranks just behind. This is especially surprising given that trust in the Church in Russia is actually higher than in Bulgaria and Serbia, though lower than in religiously aligned countries like Ukraine, Greece, and Cyprus. The same pattern emerges in the broader dataset of 92 countries from the seventh WVS wave. In terms of trust in the Church, Russia ranks 44th, whereas it ranks only 69th in frequency of church attendance. In other words, trust in the Church does not correlate with religiosity. Institutionally, the Russian Orthodox Church is evidently perceived more as a component of state ritual than as a spiritual authority.
Thus, comparative analysis across two waves of the World Values Survey reinforces the findings from domestic Russian polling. Despite a decade of official efforts to promote Orthodoxy as the 'religion of anti-Westernism’, Russia remains one of the least religious nations in the world, and the least religious among Orthodox countries. Compared to the early 2010s, religiosity has risen slightly, but primarily in the form of declarative identification. This shift has brought Russia’s religiosity indicators closer to those of Catholic-majority nations, distancing it from the Protestant countries it once resembled. At the same time, trust in the Church appears disproportionately high for a country with such low levels of actual religious engagement. And when it comes to church attendance, Russia remains at the level of the most secularised nations in Europe.