Religion under the microscope

The Keston Institute (Oxford, England, president - Ksenia Dennen) and the Institute of Religion and Law (director - Roman Lunkin) organized a presentation at the Slavic Legal Center (co-chair of the center - Anatoly Pchelintsev) of the just published third book of the Atlas of Contemporary Religious Life in Russia.

The first volume appeared back in 2005 (M.-SPb: Summer Garden, 2005). The atlas is an analytical description of modern religious life in 78 constituent entities of the Russian Federation (all republics, territories and regions). This is part of a large-scale study of religion in Russia, which began more than 10 years ago.

The idea came from sociologist and then employee of the Institute of the USA and Canada Sergei Filatov in 1993. “I studied religion in America and when, during perestroika, I decided to look at what was happening with religion in Russia, I discovered that there was no material,” says Sergei Filatov. — I had to do field research. We were interested in everything important in religious life - and the number of problems posed increased and the questionnaires expanded. We talked with everyone who shapes the religious life of Russia - with clergy, religious activists, government officials, religious scholars.”

In total, several thousand people were interviewed; in each subject of the Federation they found leaders of various religious organizations: Baptist, Pentecostal, Islamic, and Buddhist; they tried to capture all the diversity of Orthodox life.

Sergei Filatov is constantly leading the project; by 1998, a research team had been formed, which included Roman Lunkin, Lyudmila Vorontsova, Alexandra Stepina, Vladimir Poresh and others. Employees of the Keston Institute also participated in business trips and collecting material. From 2003 to 2006, four volumes of the reference book “Modern Religious Life in Russia. Experience of systematic description" (Ed. M. Burdo, S.B. Filatov. M.: Logos, 2003-2006). The directory analyzes all modern religious associations and movements existing in Russia. The Atlas is its continuation, filled with living facts and evidence.