Speaking to a crowd in St Peter's Square before reciting the Angelus on Sunday, he said God is love and "the one who loves does not remain rigid.

"Yes, they stand firm, but not rigid; they do not remain rigid in their own positions, but allow themselves to be moved and touched."

Francis also commented on the day's Gospel - the story of the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter. At first, Jesus brushes her off since she is not Jewish. But he sees her persistent faith and grants her request.

"Later," the pope said, "the Holy Spirit would push the church to the ends of the world," but at that point Jesus was preaching to the Jews.

"Faced with her concrete case, he becomes even more sympathetic and compassionate.

"This is what God is like: he is love, and the one who loves does not remain rigid."

"Love is creative," he said. "And we Christians who want to imitate Christ, we are invited to be open to change."

Francis suggested that in faith and relationships with others, people need to notice and be willing "to soften up in the name of compassion and the good of others, like Jesus did with the Canaanite woman."

Another aspect of the story is the woman's strong and insistent faith that Jesus could heal her daughter, he noted.

The woman "probably had little or no awareness of the laws and religious precepts" of Judaism. She comes up to him, prostrates herself and has a "frank dialogue" with him, Francis said.

"This is the concreteness of faith, which is not a religious label but is a personal relationship with the Lord."

Consider whether you show Christ's compassion and flexibility and the Canaanite woman's bold faith, he invited the crowd.

"Do I know how to be understanding and do I know how to be compassionate, or do I remain rigid in my position?" Francis asked them to consider.

"Is there some rigidity in my heart, which is not firmness? Rigidity is bad, but firmness is good."

"Do I know how to dialogue with the Lord? Do I know how to insist with him? Or am I content to recite beautiful formulas?"

Source

• NCR Online

"There's something very, very wrong when so many people who claim to be religious act as if they have to hide out, as if their understanding of things couldn't support daylight," Marilynne Robinson said Friday during the Trinity Forum livestream event, "Story, Culture, & the Common Good."

The event was the latest entry in the Trinity Forum's schedule of online events aimed at creating virtual spaces for engaging life's deep questions in a faith context during the pandemic.

Referencing the many times when she's been asked whether she was afraid to write about Christianity for a broader, secular audience, the novelist said, "I've had no problem with that, zero!"

"I think one of the strangest things that happens is that many people who consider themselves Christians consider themselves strangers in the world, in the sense that if people found out what they really thought or believed, they'd be ridiculed," she added.

Robinson's books make no attempt to disguise her love for and fluency with theology, which shows itself in the deeply religious lives of many of her characters, such as Gilead'sReverend John Ames.

Gilead won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Her forthcoming novel, Jack, continues with the story of Ames' prodigal son, John Ames Broughton.

Unreasonable suspicions of interactions with the broader world, Robinson argued Friday, cause Christians to "restrict their own work, their own imaginations, because they're afraid."

Holding up her own career as a test of what happens when a Christian artist resists those fears, she said, "I think I have been as genuinely and fairly read and reviewed as any writer that I know."

Robinson also weighed in on the contours of a current cultural moment marked by the pandemic and a nationwide reckoning on racial injustice.

"I've never seen such crazy times in my life, but I do think the balance is probably on the side of the restoration of American democracy," Robinson said, adding that democracy is "the only way we can possibly honor the fact of the brilliance, the importance of every human life."

Conceding that "the government itself seems to be in pretty bad shape," the author said she sees signs in movements to combat racial injustice that the "populace seems to be in pretty good shape" and she believes "we have a good possibility of having it all work out."

"We're just living, in a kind of condensed form, human life … people have always had to deal with pandemics, plagues… people have always dealt with unrest," she said. "We're not habituated to it because we've been very fortunate, but that doesn't mean we're exempt from what people have lived through time out of mind."

Fear and a "tendency to condescend horribly to one another" have been destructive forces at a time that instead calls for a "discipline of generosity," the author said.

Humans have an "unlimited capacity for generosity," she explained. "That means that in any work you do at all - that certainly means any artistic work you do - we have that capacity to create society around us by acts of generosity towards the society, and of course the repayment of that sort of choice is very clear… you make the society you want to live in."

History, Robinson argued, could be providing models for moving society forward.

Too often, however, people are approaching history with either uncritical nostalgia - "that's when people were right-minded" - or blanket condescension - those who "existed with evil" must have been evil themselves. Continue reading

• The analysis or comments in this article do not necessarily reflect the view of CathNews.

Islamic State that ruled Mosul from 2014 to 2016, damaged or destroyed every church in the city including the 19th century built "Our Lady of the Hour" Church, popularly called Al Saa'a Church.

Currently, the church is being rebuilt through a partnership between UNESCO, the United Arab Emirates, and the Dominican order.

Established in the 19th century, the Our Lady of the Hour Church was the base for the Catholic parish in northern Iraq and Kurdistan. Read more

Before Jamshed Eric plunges deep below Karachi's streets to clean out clogged sewers with his bare hands, he says a little prayer to Jesus to keep him safe.

The work is grueling, and he wears no mask or gloves to protect him from the stinking sludge and toxic plumes of gas that lurk deep underground.

"It is a difficult job," Mr. Eric said. "In the gutter, I am often surrounded by swarms of cockroaches." Read more

"It has been the capital of the Israeli people since ancient times," said the President. "It's undeniable, it's just a fact."

Christians in Bethlehem responded to the news by burning photos of the American president. They held signs saying: "Jerusalem, Palestine's heart, is not up to negotiations."

This may come as a surprise to many in the West. We probably assume that Palestine's Christians prefer the democratic Israelis to their Islamist-heavy countrymen. Sadly, that's not the case.

In 2003, Israel began enclosing Bethlehem behind a 23-foot concrete wall. Its purpose was to keep suicide bombers from crossing out of the West Bank and into Israel during the Intifada.

But even after the worst unrest settled, the wall kept growing. And Christians living in the town, who have never taken up arms against Israel, are suffering for it.

As Hanan Nasrallah, a Palestinian employee of the Catholic Relief Services, put it: "The separation wall… cuts family from each other.

"People get humiliated at checkpoints. People do not have many opportunities to improve their living standards. So, therefore, Christians who can afford to, are trying to leave this country."

It's not just families that are being split up, either. The wall also runs through the neighbouring village of Beit Jala, which is 80 percent Christian.

Upon completion, it will cut off a Salesian monastery from its sister-convent and the rest of the local Christian community.

The plight of Beit Jala's Christians prompted Cardinal Vincent Nichols to write a letter to William Hague in 2012, asking him to appeal to Tel Aviv directly.

And this doesn't even touch on those Palestinian Christians displaced from their historic homes by encroaching settlements, or those terrorised by "price tag attacks" carried out by radical Israeli nationalists.

These are not acts of the Israeli government, though it is the government's responsibility - both morally and under international law - to respect the rights of Palestinians, whatever their religion. Continue reading

• Michael Davis is the Catholic Herald's US editor

At the same time, President Trump announced plans to eventually relocate the US Embassy to the holy city.

Pope Francis responded to the change in US policy, saying he wants the "status quo" to remain.

He says he is "profoundly concerned" about recent developments concerning Jerusalem.

He declared the city a unique and sacred place for Christians, Jews and Muslims and that it has a "special vocation for peace."

He appealed "that everyone respects the status quo of the city," according to UN resolutions.

"I pray to the Lord that its identity is preserved and strengthened for the benefit of the Holy Land, the Middle East and the whole world ...

"... and that wisdom and prudence prevail to prevent new elements of tension from being added to a global context already convulsed by so many cruel conflicts," he said on Wednesday.

Others have expressed concern about Trump's decision.

The Middle East has strongly objected to the move.

Carefully worded rebukes have also flowed in from US allies.

The US position in 1947 held that Jerusalem was a corpus seperatum: an internationally controlled entity that belonged to neither Arab nor Jew.

Bit by bit this view has altered. Firstly it adopted a policy of "limited internationalisation", while still opposing both Arabs and Israelis claiming Jerusalem as their capital.

Nonetheless, Israel has sought to claim Jerusalem as its capital.

Following the six-day war in 1967, a new policy was adopted.

This held that neither Israelis nor Arabs could claim Jerusalem as their capital.

The Vatican has long sought an internationally guaranteed status for Jerusalem that safeguards its sacred character for Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Francis spoke by telephone on Tuesday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, after President Donald Trump forewarned Abbas of his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The Vatican said the call with Francis was made at Abbas's initiative.

Source

• The Washington Post
• The Washington Post
• National Catholic Register
• La Croix
• Zenit
• JSTOR
• Image: Time Magazine

Image:

Some customers have threatened to boycott Tesco because of advertising scenes showing a Muslim family exchanging gifts. Others say the Muslims' inclusion is "very wrong".

Those who support the "Everyone's Welcome" ad are using social media to explain why it's "wonderful to share the day with everyone," regardless of their faith.

One supporter of the adverts says his family celebrates Christmas each year with their Muslim friends.

We give our Muslim neighbours' kids Christmas presents, and they give presents to ours. We share food.

"They don't come to church, but then again we don't go to the mosque when they have us over for Eid. Gift-giving is something everyone can get involved in."

A person against the ad's said: "I object strongly to your anti-Christian Xmas advert - how dare you politicise our festival in order to appease lefty political correctness.

"You have lost me as a customer now, you should rethink your advertising campaign, British people still live here."

Tesco is defending its position, saying the advertisement aims to promote diversity.

"Everyone is welcome at Tesco this Christmas, and we're proud to celebrate the many ways our customers come together over the festive season."

The supermarket says its Christmas campaign "will celebrate the many ways we come together at Christmas, and how food sits at the heart of it all."

Many Muslims joined the online flurry explaining why they enjoy the festive season.

One woman wrote: "I am Muslim and I love Christmas.

"It's so nice and it's also cultural. I just love the tastes and smells."

Source

• Independent
• Huffington Post
• Finance.co.uk
• Image: Cilisos

Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking to a group of Christian media professionals at the Christian Media Summit in Jerusalem.

His comments and the event itself reflect the close ties and staunch support for Israel in the evangelical world. Read more

About half of them have have left so far, says a report released by Christian advocacy groups Open Doors, Served, and Middle East Concern. Read more

Last week, his administration rescinded former guidelines allowing transgender students to use the public school bathrooms of their choice.

And evangelical leaders report having direct access to the Oval Office. For all his clear foibles, Trump seems to be heeding concerns that drew much white evangelical and Catholic support during the 2016 election.

So it's an interesting time for conservative Christians — traditional Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Protestants — to consider withdrawing from American public life.

And yet in the coming weeks and months, expect to hear a lot about the Benedict Option. It's a provocative vision for Christians outlined in a new book by Rod Dreher, who has explored it for the past decade on his lively American Conservative blog.

To Dreher, Trump's presidency has only given conservative Christians "a bit more time to prepare for the inevitable."

He predicts for traditional Christians loss of jobs, influence, First Amendment protections and goodwill among neighbors and co-workers. Even under Trump, says Dreher, the future is very dark.

The Benedict Option derives its name from a 6th-century monk who left the crumbling Roman Empire to form a separate community of prayer and worship. Benedict of Nursia founded monasteries and a well-known "Rule" to govern Christian life together.

By many accounts, Benedictine monasteries seeded the growth of a new civilization to blossom throughout Western Europe after Rome's fall.

In his book for a mainstream publisher (Penguin's Sentinel), Dreher insists that conservative Christians today should likewise withdraw from the crumbling American empire to preserve the faith, lest it be choked out by secularism, individualism and LGBT activism. Continue reading

• Katelyn Beaty is editor at large at Christianity Today magazine and author of "A Woman's Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World" (Simon & Schuster).

"Our people feel it keenly when religious freedom is denied to anyone anywhere," said Reagan boldly in the heart of Communist oppression.

"And hope with you that soon all the many Soviet religious communities that are now prevented from registering, or are banned altogether … will soon be able to practice their religion freely and openly and instruct their children in and outside the home in the fundamentals of their faith."

That historic moment occurred in the waning days of a dying Soviet empire. But to date, no American president, Republican or Democrat, has replicated it in the other regions of the world where religious repression is commonplace.

Clearly, President Obama has not taken up the torch, as he has shown little, if any, interest in international religious liberty.

His first State Department ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom wasn't confirmed until April 2011 — 27 months into his first term.

This disinterest is reflected in the administration's disregard for the religious nature of much of international terror:

• When ISIS beheaded 21 men on a Libyan beach, the White House said in a statement, "The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya."
  "Citizens," not Christians whose faith led to their death.
• When a Taliban faction deliberately targeted Christians in an Easter attack in Pakistan, a spokesman for the president's National Security Council said, "The United States condemns in the strongest terms today's appalling terrorist attack in Lahore, Pakistan."
  An attack on whom is unclear. Not to the Taliban: They issued a statement saying they specifically had aimed at killing Christians. Continue reading

Sources

• Religion News Service, from an article by Tony Perkins and Frank Wolf.
• Image: Copts United

Yusef Daher, secretary-general of the Jerusalem Interchurch Center, said the network of Israeli police barriers disrupt the flow and number of people who are able to reach the church of the Holy Sepulchre for Good Friday services and the Orthodox Holy Fire ceremony at the Easter Vigil.

It is part of the Israel's policy of making Jerusalem an exclusively Jewish city, said Daher. "This [restrictions] did not happen 10 years ago," he said.

The Holy Fire ceremony involves the sharing of fire which, according to tradition, is brought forth miraculously from the tomb of Jesus by the Greek Orthodox and Armenian patriarchs.

The flames are passed from person to person by torches to bundles of candles. Eventually fire from the ceremony is sent to the various parishes of the Holy Land.

The ceremony has become a point of contention over the past 10 years between the Israeli police and local Christians.

Authorities are saying that the single exit into the plaza makes the ceremony a high risk for visitors if a fire breaks out.

In 1808, a fire severely damaged the dome of the Rotunda and dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death, while in the mid-1800s a fire during the Holy Fire Ceremony reportedly also killed hundreds of pilgrims.

Daher, who heads the umbrella group for Christian churches in Jerusalem,said that although the single entrance and exit to the church cause a potential fire safety hazard, there had been no problem in more than a century.

Palestinian Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza, meanwhile, need special permits to attend Holy Week and Easter ceremonies.

Israel has said it will refrain from taking unilateral action concerning the churches in order to avoid provoking protests.

Sources

CNS/The Tablet
Catholic News Service
America Magazine
Image: EPA/America

The concern follows reports that Chinese officials ordered the removal of a cross from a church in Zhejiang province last week.

"This incident fits into a pattern of government aggression ... involving the partial or full demolition of churches," said John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need.

"What's going on in Zhejiang shows the authorities have no intention whatsoever of giving Christians the freedom they need to practice their faith, something that is a fundamental human right," said Pontifex.

At least 18 Protestant church crosses have been removed in Zhejiang so far this year.

The Bangkok-based ucanews.com, however, reported that the incident last week was the first time authorities have targeted a much smaller Catholic community.

According to the news agency, more than 1,700 crosses around China have been removed since the end of 2013.

Meanwhile, a Christian pastor and his wife were reported to have been sentenced to 14 years in prison after they led a protest to oppose the removal of a cross from atop their church.

Ten other members of the Protestant church were also imprisoned.

A court in eastern Zhejiang province decided that the couple had illegally prompted churchgoers to petition the government and disturb social order.

"The government's criminal prosecution against the pastor and his believers is actually religious persecution," said China Aid, an organization that has been supporting resistance to the cross removals through funding from abroad.

Sources

UCAN
International Business Times
The Tablet
Image: ucanews.com

This is the first time the European Parliament has acknowledged an ongoing conflict as genocide.

Lars Adaktusson, the Swedish MEP who tabled the resolution, said the significance of the move is the obligations that follow.

"The collective obligation to intervene, to stop these atrocities and to stop the persecution in the ongoing discussion about the fight against the Islamic State," he said.

The resolution may pave the way for Britain and the US State Department to give similar recognition to ISIS's slaughter of Christians.

A motion to that effect has been tabled in the UK's House of Commons.

Continue reading

He has written to Prime Minister John Key, offering the support of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops for the cautious and measured approach to making decisions about New Zealand's involvement in the Middle East conflict.

"We are aware of the difficult challenge this situation presents for countries and world leaders, and we offer the Prime Minister our prayers as he makes further decisions about New Zealand's involvement," said Dew.

"We've also urged the New Zealand Government to use its seat on the Security Council of the United Nations to find a way to move beyond the impasse on Iraq and Syria, and which will allow actions to be carried out under the UN banner."

The New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference has also asked Key to be open to further humanitarian assistance for Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

"While our concern is not only for Catholics, Catholic Syrians and Iraqis in New Zealand speak to us regularly about their deep concern for the desperate situation faced by family members in Syria and Iraq or who have become refugees."

"These insights about the effects the actions of ISIS are having on ordinary people are deeply moving."

"We encourage Catholics to remain steadfast in their prayers for the people affected by the conflict and for the world's leaders - remaining hopeful that together we can bring lasting peace to the Middle East."

Source

• Supplied NZCBC
• Image: sconews.co.uk

I suppose I should wear it as a badge of honour.

My first death threat over my new book, Hatred: Islam's War on Christianity (Signal, 2014)—was sent to me a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently I am going to die.

Thing is, I knew that, which is one of the many reasons I find my faith so comforting; death comes to us all—yes, even to authors of controversial books.

The book in question covers the history of the relationship between Islam and Christianity, what the Koran and Hadith actually say about Christians and Christianity, and then analyses the state of persecution within various Muslim nations.

Syria, of course, is especially dangerous for Christians right now.

In March 2014 I interviewed Sister Hatune Dogan, a Turkish-born nun who is a member of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church under the Holy See of Antioch.

She and her family were forced to leave Turkey when she was a young girl because of Islamic persecution and they found safety and refuge in Germany.

She studied theology and psychotherapy in her adopted country and is now an accomplished, multi-lingual woman who has toured the world extensively and seen humanity at its finest as well as worst.

She has traveled throughout the Islamic world, partly to expose the persecution of Christians and to try to ease their plights.

She has spent particular time in recent years in Iraq and, most recently, in Syria.

As many examples of atrocity and suffering as she has witnessed over the years, the situation of Syrian Christians has shocked her. Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: The Spectator

But sometimes a footnote can help illuminate a tragedy's unhappy whole.

For decades, the Middle East's increasingly beleaguered Christian communities have suffered from a fatal invisibility in the Western world.

And their plight has been particularly invisible in the United States, which as a majority-Christian superpower might have been expected to provide particular support.

There are three reasons for this invisibility.

The political left in the West associates Christian faith with dead white male imperialism and does not come naturally to the recognition that Christianity is now the globe's most persecuted religion.

And in the Middle East the Israel-Palestine question, with its colonial overtones, has been the left's great obsession, whereas the less ideologically convenient plight of Christians under Islamic rule is often left untouched.

To America's strategic class, meanwhile, the Middle East's Christians simply don't have the kind of influence required to matter.

A minority like the Kurds, geographically concentrated and well-armed, can be a player in the great game, a potential United States ally.

But except in Lebanon, the region's Christians are too scattered and impotent to offer much quid for the superpower's quo.

So whether we're pursuing stability by backing the anti-Christian Saudis or pursuing transformation by toppling Saddam Hussein (and unleashing the furies on Iraq's religious minorities), our policy makers have rarely given Christian interests any kind of due.

Then, finally, there is the American right, where one would expect those interests to find a greater hearing.

But the ancient churches of the Middle East (Eastern Orthodox, Chaldean, Maronites, Copt, Assyrian) are theologically and culturally alien to many American Catholics and evangelicals.

And the great cause of many conservative Christians in the United States is the state of Israel, toward which many Arab Christians harbor feelings that range from the complicated to the hostile. Continue reading

Source

• Ross Douthat in The New York Times

Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009.

Much of the data came from Stormfront.org, which Times contributor Seth Stephens-Davidowitz called "America's most popular online hate site."

It was founded in 1995 by former Ku Klux Klan leader Don Black.

The frightening thing is that 76 percent of Americans on the site are under 30.

According to the Times story, Stormfront's targets break down like this: 39 percent Jews, 33 percent blacks, 13 percent Hispanics, 11 percent Muslims and 3 percent other.

This led me to surmise that many of the haters are white Christians.

I founded OnFaith eight years ago this summer.

I was new to the religion world when I started and had no idea what to expect.

The fact is that I was too green to anticipate the potential complications that might arise from a pluralistic religion site.

I had long heard the old adage that one never discussed religion or politics at dinner, but I was not intimidated.

One of my friends asked me if I was afraid of running a religion website because it might be too controversial.

I replied that I had covered Washington social life for many years, and nothing was more dangerous than that.

But I hadn't counted on one thing: the Christians.

Yes, the Christians.

Anyone in the public eye — whether writing for newspapers, being in politics, or on television — gets hate mail.

There are a lot of kooks out there.

Back when people wrote letters, you could spot a kook from the handwriting: thin pen, slanted, and squiggly.

On the outside of the envelope were often little notes like "I have electrodes in my teeth."

Inside, everything was underlined in red with lots of exclamation points.

I used to wonder if there was a special school for crazy people to learn how to write these letters.

When I started OnFaith, the mail became comments on the Internet — and they were worse than the letters. Continue reading

Source

• Sally Quinn in OnFaith

Sally Quinn is the founding editor of OnFaith.

Francis Campbell, who served in Rome from 2005 to 2011, said he was deeply disturbed by the West's indifference to the events in Mosul.

The extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) gave Mosul Christians an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay an exorbitant tax or die, by noon, July 19.

"It's reminiscent of what we saw in Europe in the build-up to the Second World War or the ethnic cleansing witnessed [in] the Balkans in the early 1990s, where there is an attempt to systematically wipe out an entire civilisation and culture," Mr Campbell said.

ISIS members marked the homes of Christian families throughout Mosul with the Arabic letter "N", standing for "Nazarene".

The Sunni militants burned an 1800-year-old church to the ground and ordered church bells to be silent.

Last Sunday, Mass was not celebrated in the city for the first time in 1600 years, as an estimated 10,000 Christians left Mosul.

Mr Campbell noted that UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon had said the purge of Christians in Mosul was "likely a crime against humanity".

The US State Department and the UN Security Council have also denounced the ISIS actions.

But days after the ultimatum deadline had passed, neither the British Prime Minister nor the European Union had spoken out, Mr Campbell said.

Pope Francis has expressed his deep concern over these events and has assured all Christians of the Middle East of his "constant prayers".

Patriarch Louis Sako, the Chaldean Archbishop of Baghdad, said any dialogue with the extremists seemed impossible.

The militants are like "a wall" as they only repeat: "Between us there is nothing but a sword", the patriarch said.

Patriarch Sako said that as late as the end of June, 35,000 Christians had lived in Mosul, and more than 60,000 lived there before the US-led invasion in 2003.

"Iraq is heading towards a humanitarian, cultural and historical disaster," he said in an open letter to Iraqis and the world last week.

ISIS seeks to create an Islamic caliphate across parts of Iraq and Syria.

The Organisation of Islamic Co-operation has condemned their actions in Mosul.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• National Catholic Reporter
• Voice of America
• Image: KR Magazine

Between the years 1991 and 2008, Russian adults identifying at Orthodox Christian rose from 31% to 72%, and the share of Russia's population not identifying with any religion dropped from 61% - 18%, the February 2014 international survey shows.

However the increase in the number of people identifying as Christians has not corresponded with an increase of numbers attending church.

Only one in ten Russians said they attended religious services at least once a month.

For centuries, Orthodox Christianity was the dominant religion in Russia, however this began to change following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the imposition of state-sponsored atheism as part of communist ideology.

During the Soviet period, many priests were imprisoned, many churches were converted to other uses or fell into disrepair and people who publicly professed religious beliefs were denied prestigious jobs and admission to universities.

"It is difficult to disentangle the extent to which the upsurge in Orthodox affiliation found in the surveys represents and expression of long-held faith or a genuinely new wave of religious affiliation," reports the PewResearch study.

The data however suggests the change is not solely an immediate aftereffect of the collapse of the Soviet system.

Other findings concluded:

• Older Russians (70+) were more affiliated than older (16 - 29)
• Younger Russians (16 - 29) were more likely to belong to other religions (70+)
• Religious affiliation did not differ markedly by education level
• Russian were more likely to identify as Orthodox Christians
• Russian women believed in God than did Russian men
• Twice as many Russian men (24%) said they had no religious affiliation.

Source

• PewResearch