Christianity in Russia
[5] According to the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, Protestants make up the second or third largest group of Christians in Russia, with approximately 3,500 organizations and more than 1 million followers.
[12] This includes:[12] According to research done in 2020 by the International Religious Demography Project and published on the World Religion Database, 82.19% of russians identify as Christians.
As of February 2, 2010, the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) has 160 dioceses including 30,142 parishes served by 207 bishops, 28,434 priests and 3,625 deacons.
As of 2006, the total number of Old Believers is estimated from 500,000 to 1 million, some living in isolated communities to which they fled centuries ago to avoid persecution.
[18] The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow has voiced his support for religious education in state sponsored schools, citing the examples of other countries.
Pope John Paul II expressed a desire to visit Russia, but the Russian Orthodox Church resisted.
Despite easing of relations with the election of Pope Benedict XVI, there remain issues such as the readiness of the police to protect Catholics and other minorities from persecution.
[23] One thousand Russian Catholics gathered in the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Moscow to watch the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.
[citation needed] There are also Byzantine Rite Catholic Church communes in Russia (in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Omsk and Nizhnevartovsk), which are in full communion with, and subject to, the authority of the Pope as defined by Eastern canon law.
[citation needed] Some Protestants, especially at the provincial level, report government restrictions and obstruction of their activities by local authorities.
In April 2007, the European Court of Human Rights obliged Russia to pay €10,000 as non-pecuniary damages for the refusal to register the Moscow branch of the Salvation Army.
"[29] According to Evangelical Christians Baptists who conducted a bicycle missionary expedition in July – August 2007, they faced serious obstacles and suspicious attitude from local authorities in several regions of Russia.
According to Yuri Sipko, president of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Russia, the goal of the tour was to, "fight their way through on foot or on bicycles to reach even the most remote village and the most despairing person in order to convert them."
In 1935, the Watch Tower Society unsuccessfully attempted to establish a branch office in the Soviet Union to support members already there.
[40] However, on April 20, 2017, the Supreme Court of Russia issued a verdict upholding the claim from the country's Justice Ministry that Jehovah's Witnesses' activity violated laws on "extremism".
The ruling liquidates the group's Russian headquarters in St. Petersburg and all of its 395 local religious organizations, ordering their property to be seized by the state.
"[46] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum also expressed deep concern over Russia's treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses.
[48] In 1855 in the Novouzensk region, Ivan Grigorev Kanygin founded religious communities involving untraditional marriage[clarification needed] and communal practices based on their interpretations of the New Testament.
Although they called themselves Communists or Methodists (due to a claimed association with Methodism), an Orthodox priest named Khrisanf Rozhdestvenskiy labeled them "Mormons" in 1869 after the contemporaneous American movement, and the term was thereafter applied pejoratively to such adherents.
In the 1870s, a separate community developed near the Volga city of Samara whose members avoided alcohol, tobacco and swearing, cooperated in commercial enterprises, and were governed by "apostles" and "prophets".
Joseph Smith called George J. Adams and Orson Hyde as missionaries to Russia in 1843, 13 years after the Church's creation.
[53] In 2018, Russell M. Nelson announced at the April General Conference of the Church that a temple would be constructed in a major city in Russia.
However, the works (by deacon of Posolsky Prikaz Avraamiy Firsov, pastor E. Gluk, and archbishop Methodiy (Smirnov)) were lost during political turbulence and wars.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, activities of the Society were stopped by reactionary policies of the Russian government, but were restored in 1990–1991 when Soviet regime restrictions eased.
