The Sreda Research Service organized social polls within the framework of the ARENA project and says that 41% of Russians belonged to the Orthodox Christian Church and 1.5% were Orthodox, but not part of the church. Levada Center said that 74% of Russians were Orthodox, RIA Novosti reports.
Sreda questioned 60,000 people in 79 regions of Russia in 2012, coordinator of Sreda, Alina Bagrina, explained. 25% said they believed in God, but did not belong to any religion. 4.1% of people were Christians of an unidentified confession. 0.2% (300,000) people were Old Believers.
Vakhtang Kipshidze, head of the directorate for information and analysis of the Synod information section of the ROC, noted controversies of calculating Christians. He noted that high-ranking clerics had been talking about 70-80% of the population being orthodox Christians.
According to Sreda, only 2% of the population was regular church-goers (once a month or more). 12% of people questioned prayed daily. Only 5% of Russians read the New Testament. 13% of people believed in superstitions.
Bishop of Podolsk Tikhon, head of the financial and economic directorate of the ROC and head of the program for construction of 200 new churches in Moscow, said that poor knowledge of people considering themselves believers was not a surprise. Communities are often gathered from people willing to help build a church. They become believers only after communicating with the priest after.
