Let him who has wisdom consider

On May 10, Vladimir Legoyda, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media, stated that the data published by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow on the number of visitors to Easter services are approximate, and, to put it bluntly, are incorrect.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs counted 660,000 visitors to Easter services, and according to the Russian Orthodox Church, there were "more than a million." Agree, the discrepancy in numbers is significant even across the country.

This dispute is actually fundamental and extremely substantive. The fact is that there is no objective system for recording practicing believers in our country. Therefore, the main church holidays - Easter and Christmas - turn out to be the only reason to officially fix their real number.

Temple attendance these days is really peaking, and it’s not for nothing that in any discussion about the need to build new churches, the argument invariably sounds: “It doesn’t matter that at normal times churches may be empty, you come at Easter!” But year after year, the data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs testify that the main holiday of Orthodoxy is actively and, more importantly, according to church canons (that is, with obligatory attendance of services) is celebrated by only a few percent of our fellow citizens. Even if we agree with Mr. Legoyda's figures and round up the number of visitors to Easter services in Moscow to a generous 1.2 million people, it still turns out that in the Russian capital only 10% of the population are practicing Orthodox Christians. The official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs rather indicate 5%, which looks quite embarrassing.

To be honest, I have been waiting for the beginning of this conversation all the last years. It has long been noted that when counting participants in political actions, the Ministry of Internal Affairs always publishes figures that are convenient for the authorities - therefore, according to official data, as a rule, much fewer people come to opposition rallies than the organizers say, and at pro-government actions, the turnout invariably rolls over. The annoyance of the clergy of the patriarchate is quite understandable: why, when counting visitors to church events, the police again and again publish data without regard to church statistics?

There is one of two things here: either some rabid anticlericals and enemies of Orthodoxy have settled in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, year after year underestimating key figures, or, due to some misunderstanding, the registration of visitors to Orthodox services still does not pass under the section “politically important figures”, and therefore carried out without any incremental coefficients. But if we consider the data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to be objective, then it will be necessary to admit that no Orthodox majority actually exists in Russia. Needless to say, how destructive this is for the doctrine officially proclaimed by the authorities and the leadership of the Church about the special role of the Orthodox Church in modern Russia?

In the meantime, it is worth noting the following point: if next spring it suddenly turns out that many times more parishioners came to churches on Easter than in previous years, this will be a sure sign that the Ministry of Internal Affairs heeded the instructions from the patriarchate