The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Russia, religion in S 399

religious leaders who stepped out of line were severely punished. After the collapse of communism in 1989, the picture changed dramatically. During the 1990s religious belief, under the new regime, appeared to increase greatly. Churches were reopened, reli gious leaders were involved in public life, and religion was highly visible in the media. Minor ity movements new and old endeavored to take advantage of the novel openness to spiritual life in all its varieties. Despite czarist and Soviet oppression, Russia has long harbored dissident and minority religious groups. An early example is the Old Believers, a group formed in the late 1600s by those who opposed reforms introduced into the Russian Orthodox church by the Patriarch (chief bishop) and the czar. Other early dissidents were Russian varieties of radical Protestants, such as the Douk hobors, strict pacifists ( see PACIFISM , RELIGIOUS ) and followers of the “inner light” who rejected SACRA MENTS and other outward forms of religion, and the Molokans, also pacifists and followers of inner guidance, some of whose practices resemble those associated with P ENTECOSTALISM . In the 19th century Western missionaries introduced other forms of P ROTESTANTISM , espe cially the B APTIST C HURCH , the J EHOVAH ’ S W ITNESSES , S EVENTH -D AY A DVENTISM , and P ENTECOSTALISM . S PIRI TUALISM also appeared in Russia, and two major figures in modern OCCULTISM AND ESOTERICISM , Hel ena P. Blavatsky (1831–91), cofounder of THEOSO PHY , and Georges Gurdjieff ( c. 1872–1919), were

from regions that were then parts of the Russian Empire. Under the new religious freedom of the 1990s, still more new religions arose in Russia, and others, like the Hare Krishna movement ( see K RISHNAISM IN THE W EST ), were introduced. One result was a con troversial new law on religious freedom in 1997 that put firm restrictions on the activities of new reli gions and groups brought in from outside Russia. Traditional ethnic minorities include Muslims ( see I SLAM ), some 7.6 percent of the population in 2000, and a smaller number of Jews and Buddhists ( see J UDAISM and B UDDHISM ). Relations between them and the Christian majority have often been painful. Jews suffered from discrimination and persecution under both czarist and communist rule. In the early 21st century, Chechnya, mostly Muslim, attempted to secede from Russia, with violent results. Russia, a vast land with newfound freedom but a tradition of religious policy imposed from above, remains in a spiritual ferment that holds possible consequences for the world as a whole. Further reading: John Anderson, Religion, State, and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor States, 1953–1993 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Jane Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.); Jane Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church: Triumphalism and Defensiveness (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); Shireen Hunter, Islam in Russia (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2004).