The attitude of young people towards the Russian Orthodox Church
05/18/2011The Youth is “searching”? Lies and tales. It’s not searching for anything, It’s filled with an acute feeling of its own self – a feeling that by its nature excludes searching.
Fr. Aleksandr Shmeman
The results of the All-Russian representative survey conducted by the service SREDA (field work: Public Opinion Foundation “PENTA”, sample 1500 people)
40% of Russians believe that the attitude of Russian youth to the Russian Orthodox Church has improved. More likely to believe this are women, retired people, Muscovites and citizens involved in science and education. Deterioration in attitude was reported by 11% of respondents.
Respondents were asked the following question: In your opinion, has the attitude of young Russians towards the Russian Orthodox Church changed in recent years, and if YES, then has it improved or deteriorated?
Attitude of youth to the Russian Orthodox Church has improved – so believe 40% of Russians. Moreover, women (“improved”: 45%) see the situation more positively than men (“improved”: 33%). Also, retired people more often gave a positive response. With this said, respondents under 35 years less often believe that attitude is improving.
A positive outlook was shown among Russians who are employed in the academic sphere. “The attitude of the youth towards the Church has improved”, – said almost half of the respondents employed in education and science.
Orthodox respondents mostly agree that the attitude of young people towards the church has changed in a positive way. Among the Orthodox, a positive response to the question was predominantly given by those who participate or are willing to participate in parish life.
Citizens with a more positive view of the situation more often live in the Central Federal District (45%), including in the “heart of Russia.” Compared to residents of other cities, Muscovites are more likely to say that the youth has recently become more positive towards the Russian Orthodox Church.
26% of Russians believe that the attitude of youth to the Church in recent years has not changed. Most often this view is expressed by students and pupils (39%), residents of large cities (from 250 to 1 million people – 39%), residents of South and North Caucasus (39%) and Far East districts (39%).
Only 11% of respondents felt that young people now have a more negative attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church. In terms of the number of citizens seeing the situation negatively, the leader is the Far Eastern region (30%). More often than the on average, a negative response was given by respondents who earn less than 3,000 roubles a month, as well as citizens with no children. Conversely, Russians who have a family with three or more children were the least likely to give a negative answer.
23% of respondents did not have a specific position on the issue. This group was made up predominantly of workers (28%), respondents employed in manufacturing (30%), and Muslims (34%). Yet at the same time, Muslims and citizens that support the Communist Party less often said that the attitude of young people towards the church has deteriorated.
As it turned out, level of education did not have an effect on a respondent’s answers: Russians who only attended high school answered the same way as those who have a diploma of higher education.