Religion in Russia

[waltky]

Communism is the opiate of the masses...

Russia emerges as Europe's most God-believing nation
May 6, 2011 - Nearly 20 years after the collapse of the atheistic Soviet Union, a recent poll found that 82 percent of Russians classify themselves as religious believers. But far fewer subscribe to organized religion.

Two decades after the collapse of the USSR, history's most atheistic state, the vast majority of Russians attest to a belief in God – more than in any other European country – according to a new opinion poll. The survey, carried out in April by the independent Public Opinion Fund (FOM), found that 82 percent of Russians say they are religious believers, while just 13 percent say they do not believe in any deity.

But the powerful Russian Orthodox Church will find nothing to celebrate in the survey's details. The church claims 70 percent of Russians as its adherents and on the basis of that has successfully pressured the Kremlin to return most church property seized by the Bolsheviks almost a century ago, including vast tracts of land, churches, monasteries, and thousands of religious artifacts formerly held by state museums.

But according to the poll, just 50 percent of Russians say they are Orthodox, while 27 percent didn't associate themselves with any particular organized faith. Among young people between 18 and 24, the number of unaffiliated believers was 34 percent. "It would be correct to describe Russia as a land of believers, but it cannot be called a country of religious people," says Mikhail Tarusin, head of sociology at the independent Institute of Public Projects in Moscow. "We were an officially atheist state for 74 years, and it may take some time to rebound from that. Right now I don't think we could put the proportion of truly religious, church-going people at more than 20 percent."

Experts say that most Russians lead overwhelmingly secular lives and pay little heed to the Orthodox Church's increasingly frequent efforts to influence public morals, including a leading priest's recent call for a national dress code and a string of Church-instigated lawsuits against artistic "blasphemy."

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[Steelplate]

Just because it was an Atheistic state, doesn't mean that the people were Atheists.

You see, that's what the problem is with people who already have their minds made up about a group of people. They see the outside...as an outsider... and base their opinions upon what "they" see.

To them.. Communist Russia were a bunch of "Godless pricks". When in fact, people worshiped all the time, just in private to avoid the Dictatorial law that prohibited it. In the Middle East, they are all part of a "Death Cult", when in fact most Muslims are very peaceful and want to worship in their own fashion(without bugging anyone).

As far as orthodoxy vs. Reformed type religions? I personally don't give a crap. The method of speaking to God is not nearly as important as the act of actually speaking to God.