Geraldine Fagan
Regarding religious observance and statistics in Russia, I would direct readers to the abridged extract from my book, Believing in Russia: “How Orthodox is Russia?” in the East-West Church and Ministry Report 21 (Summer 2013), 3-5, particularly the point that very few Russians are practicing Orthodox according to the Orthodox Church’s own idea of what that means: 4-5 million would be a generous figure. The Operation World figures for Protestant congregations tally very roughly with government statistics I have seen for registered religious organizations. Overall, however, my sense is that the discrepancy between government and larger Protestant organizations’ own figures is growing significantly. For instance, the combined Operation World figure for Pentecostal congregations in 2001 is 1,648; the government figure I’ve seen for January 2001 is 1,323.1 For 2010 the Operation World figure is over 2,000, while the government figure I’ve seen for January 2009 is only 1,335.
I recently spoke with representatives of the two largest Pentecostal unions: according to their estimates, the combined total of the unions’ congregations would be around 5,000. These figures suggest to me that such congregations are increasingly either unable to register, or are avoiding the bureaucracy associated with it. Of course, the number of people in these congregations is another, much trickier question. For what it is worth, the government totals for registered Russian Orthodox Church congregations in January 2001 and January 2009 respectively are 10,912 and 12,727.
The corresponding figures for Roman Catholic congregations do not suggest a dramatic fall, as Operation World’s do: 258 and 232.2 For Belarus, Operation World figures tally roughly with January 2000 government figures for all religious organizations I was shown in Minsk in 2001. However, government figures had 1,139 Orthodox churches. (Operation World has 799.) Operation World’sBelarus figures for 2010 are also close to official government figures for September 2009,3 except that the government figures have 470 Roman Catholic churches. (Operation Worldhas 400.)
As for Russia, Operation World figures for Baptists (325) and Pentecostals (nearly 600) are significantly higher than official government congregational figures (271 and 501). I think this is again likely due to the difficulty of registering new Protestant congregations. Belarus is often wrongly assumed to be a cultural extension of Russia. Unfortunately, little research on religiosity has been possible in Belarus, but what is available suggests proportionally greater religiosity, and more significant Catholic and Protestant minorities than in Russia. In a 2000 poll, 37 percent said they were Orthodox, four percent Catholic, and six percent “other” – the majority surely Protestant.4 In a 2006 poll, 66 percent said they trusted the Orthodox Church, 37 percent the Catholic Church, and 17 percent the Protestant Church. (Some evidently trusted more than one.) At Christmas 2011, 254,000 Orthodox were recorded attending church worship, only 14,000 more than the Catholic total.5 Also in 2006, 25 percent said they attended church at least once a month.6 Strikingly, this is more than double the equivalent figure in Russia, 11 percent.7
Notes:
- http://www.archipelag.ru/ru_mir/religio/statistics/ said/statistics-2001/.
- http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/print. php?act=news&id=69222.
- http://www.president.gov.by/press23736.html.
- Jan Zaprudnik, “Belarus: In Search of National Identity between 1986 and 2000” in Elena A. Korosteleva, Colin W. Lawson, and Rosalind J. Marsh, eds., Contemporary Belarus: Between Democracy and Dictatorship (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 118-19.
- Siarhei Bohdan, “Orthodox Church is Losing Belarus,” Belarus Digest 1 March 2012: http://belarusdigest.com/story/orthodox-churchlosing-belarus-8036.
- IISEPS survey, 23 October -3 November 2006. 7 D. E. Furman and K. Kaariainen, Religioznost’ v Rossii v 90-e gody XX – nachale XXI veka (Moscow: OGNI TD, 2006), 54.
Geraldine Fagan is a correspondent with Forum 18 News Service, Moscow.