Mark Elliott

The second edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), edited by David Barrett, George Kurian, and Todd Johnson, greatly expands and updates the calculations of the pathbreaking 1982 edition of the same work. The editors are to be commended for their massive investment of time and labor in the extremely difficult task of measuring the size of Christendom, and indeed, other world religions as well.

The accompanying table from the World Christian Encyclopedia provides estimates for the number of Christians in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. While helpful especially for comparative purposes, individual totals for various confessions in various countries deserve, in some cases, close scrutiny and qualification. The comments below illustrate why some calculations could be misleading.

1. The World Christian Encyclopedia would appear to be too generous in its estimates of Orthodox communities, even with the understanding that nominal believers are included. Figures for Orthodox in Russia (75,950,000), Ukraine (27,400,000), Georgia (2,886,814), and Romania (19,000,000) are so expansive that they would appear to reduce the definition of Orthodox to descendents of populations historically associated with the Orthodox church. For purposes of comparison, in the 1990s British researcher Patrick Johnstone scaled back his figures for Russian Orthodox from 72 million affiliates in Operation World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993, p. 467), to a more conservative 24 million in Patrick Johnstone and Peter Brierley, World Churches Handbook (London: Christian Research, 1997, p. 711).
2. The high degree of secularization in most post-Soviet states should raise questions, not only about Orthodox estimates, but about what appear to be overly generous figures for Catholics in such countries as the Czech Republic (4,135,936) and Slovenia (1,659,006).
3. The vast majority of Catholics in Ukraine are Eastern Rite, not Roman, so the figure of 5,578,901 must include Catholics of both rites, despite the fact that the heading is Roman Catholic.
4. The concept of "Independents," Christians "separated from, uninterested in, and independent of historic denominationalist Christianity," is meaningful and a very significant phenomenon, particularly in Africa and Asia. But one would be prudent to seriously question such startling figures for Independents as 7,800,000 in Russia and 8,500,000 in Ukraine without careful evaluation of specific relevant sources, which the World Christian Encyclopedia does not provide.
5. Christians with some connection to Protestant Reformation teachings and beliefs are enumerated under four headings: "Protestants," "Anglicans," "Evangelicals," and "Pentecostals/Charismatics." These four categories total 8,668,300 for Russia, a figure which is so far beyond any estimate for Russian believers with Reformation distinctives ever published that one is inclined to give it little credence. I published an estimate of 2,960,000 Protestants in the former Soviet Union in 1991 for all Reformation-related churches, with the Russian Republic at that point accounting for only 33 percent of Evangelical Christians-Baptists and only three percent of Pentecostals. See Mark Elliott and Robert Richardson, "Growing Protestant Diversity in the Former Soviet Union" in Russian Pluralism--Now Irreversible? ed. by Uri Ra'anan et al. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 200-01, 205. No published sources or other communications I have received would suggest that church growth in the 1990s would justify a current figure of 8.6 million Russians affiliated with Reformation-related churches. Overlap among the four Protestant Reformation categories might partly explain what appears to be an extraordinarily high estimate. But explanatory material provided for World Christian Encyclopedia statistical tables indicates that categories are "mainly mutually exclusive" (Vol. 1, p. 32). Perhaps some of the "Protestant" figure for Russia (1,630,000) includes non-Trinitarian Jehovah's Witnesses whom Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson define as "marginal Protestant" (Vol. 2, p. 664). Neither Western evangelical missions nor indigenous Russian Protestants would abide such an inclusion. But even adding Jehovah's Witnesses still would not justify the figure given for Russian Protestants in this writer's opinion, especially if "Protestants" and "Pentecostals/Charismatics" are "mainly mutually exclusive."
6. The estimates for Pentecostals/Charismatics in Russia and Ukraine (10,510,000) bear no resemblance to figures this editor has ever read or heard. I do believe that Pentecostals/Charismatics in the former Soviet Union now outnumber other Evangelicals, conceivably as much as two to one, and the World Christian Encyclopedia performs a service by noting growing Pentecostal/Charismatic strength. But the figures, at least for Russia and Ukraine, are so high that skepticism about them may cause some to question what I believe should be undeniable, that in the former Soviet Union Pentecostal/Charismatic churches are growing much more rapidly than are other Evangelical churches.

Mark Elliott is editor of the East-West Church & Ministry Report.

THE CHRISTIAN POPULATION OF POST-SOVIET STATES
FORMER SOVIET UNION

Country	Orthodox	Crypto- Christians(1)	Roman Catholic	Unaffiliated Christians(2)	Independents(3)	Doubly Affiliated(4)	Protestants*	Evangelicals	Pentecostals/ Charismatics
Armenia	2,752,493		180,000		28,000		12,000	1,900	76,900
Azerbaijan	345,302	12,000	7,500		3,600		1,400	450	10,000
Belorussia	4,986,077		1,350,000	606,991	110,000		130,000	30,800	95,000
Estonia	230,000		5,875	356,678	46,000		240,000	72,000	60,000
Georgia	2,886,814		55,000	81,666	42,000		24,000	9,200	30,000
Kazakhstan	1,401,803	140,000	510,000	118,177	650,000		25,000	10,000	82,000
Kirghizia	363,065	40,000	1,600	22,580	70,500		30,000	3,000	17,800
Latvia	555,000		490,000	1,445	115,000	-146,075	560,000	168,000	90,000
Lithuania	114,000		3,105,000		32,000	-85,903	44,000	8,900	51,300
Moldova	1,950,558		73,000		670,000		78,000	20,000	49,000
Russia	75,950,000		1,500,000	689,841	7,800,000	-3,464,943	1,633,300	560,000	6,475,000
Tajikistan	93,000	110,000	4,412		15,000		17,000	1,900	3,200
Ukraine	27,400,000		5,578,901	199,349	8,500,000	-1,284,804	1,340,000	1,016,000	4,035,000
Uzbekistan	188,934	210,000	40,000		120,000		44,000	12,500	150,000

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

Country	Orthodox	Crypto- Christians(1)	Roman Catholic	Unaffiliated Christians(2)	Independents(3)	Doubly Affiliated(4)	Protestants*	Evangelicals	Pentecostals/ Charismatics
Albania	1,101,230		521,390	27,519	17,000		20,000	6,000	100,000
Bosnia	700,000	230,000	681,135	4,917	750		2 ,700	400	32,400
Bulgaria	5,886,450		90,000	6,053	580,000		95,000	120,000	140,000
Croatia	250,000		3,960,000	2,417	11,386		26,000	6,700	127,820
Czech Rep.	60,000		4,135,936	1,636,174	270,000		320,000	127,000	256,000
Hungary	90,000		6,330,000	13,940	165,000		2,560,000	455,000	690,000
Macedonia	1,200,000		70,600	1,127	8,192		7,000	3,120	7,700
Poland	1,030,000		35,743,059	260,097	330,000		195,000	140,000	2,015,000
Romania	19,000,000		3,237,000	11,990	290,000	-5,430,087	2,380,450	1,395,302	1,350,000
Slovakia	21,000		3,660,186	286,266	23,000		600,000	115,000	246,000
Slovenia	12,000		1,659,006	92,675	31,000		32,000	13,800	69,500
Yugoslavia	6,046,000		546,557	339,179	185,000		99,000	42,400	250,000

*Includes Anglicans
(1) Crypto-Christians - Secret believers, hidden Christians, usually known to churches but not to state, secular, or non-Christian religious society
(2) Unaffiliated Christians - Persons professing allegiance and commitment to Christ but who have no church affiliation
(3) Independents - One of Christianity's six ecclesiastico-cultural megablocs, separated from, uninterested in, and independent of historic denominationalist Christianity (the other five megablocs)
(4) Doubly Affiliated Christians - Persons who are baptized members of two or more denominations at the same time

Source: David Barrett, George Kurian, and Todd Johnson, eds., World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

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