Published in: Sociology and Society: Formation and Functioning of Social Memory. Proceedings of the VII All-Russian Sociological Congress. Moscow, November 2025. EDN QUINAN.
Nikita A. Obraztsov European University at Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Abstract. Analyzing the religious identity of Orthodox Christians in contemporary Russia, the author concludes that the concept of belonging without believing can be successfully applied to interpret sociological data. In particular, the author draws attention to a significant gap between declared religiosity and actual religious practice, and proposes possible mechanisms for interpreting empirically observable facts.
Keywords: contemporary religious situation, belonging without believing, secularization, Orthodoxy.
This article examines the phenomenon of belonging without believing and the applicability of this sociological concept to the religious situation in contemporary Russia. Orthodox identity was taken as the basis for analysis, which reflects the format and thematic focus of the conference.
The concept of believing without belonging was developed by British sociologist Grace Davie in relation to the religious situation in her native United Kingdom (Davie, 2015). Subsequently, other authors extended her argument and, in the context of online religiosity in the digital age, began discussing a related phenomenon: belonging without believing (McIntosh, 2015). The present article attempts to answer the question of whether this concept is applicable to religiosity in Russia. It should be noted that the article does not claim to identify even a significant portion of religious trends in contemporary Russia; its goal is to introduce the topic in a preliminary way.
Belonging Without Believing
The central idea of Davie’s concept (believing without belonging) is that the empirically observed decline in external manifestations of religiosity does not necessarily mean that large numbers of people have abandoned religion as such. She also introduced the concept of vicarious religion as one of the contemporary forms of institutional religiosity in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom.
In the context of the development of religious institutions in the twenty-first century and their connection with historical memory, French sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger, acknowledging Davie’s formulation, also notes the relevance of the reverse: “…it has also become possible to ‘belong without believing’, or more precisely while believing only in the continuity of the group for which the signs preserved from the traditional religion now serve as emblems – a shift in the nature of religion which fails to protect society from some form of return to religious wars, rather the reverse” (Hervieu-Léger, 2001: 176).
Belonging without believing is characterized by the fact that an individual formally identifies with a religious group but in practice does not follow even its basic prescriptions, either in worldview or, more importantly, in social behaviour. Examples include a Christian who does not believe in the divinity of Christ and never attends church; a Muslim who does not implement any of the five pillars of Islam; a Jew who observes no religious prescriptions across the spectrum from circumcision to kashrut. The key element here is the declared affiliation, expressed, for instance, in a response to a question about religious identity in a sociological survey, or in other public declarations such as a VKontakte profile.
Believing without belonging and belonging without believing can, in our view, be treated as indicators of religious transformation or desecularization. These in turn represent a significant paradigmatic alternative to secularization theory, according to which the decline in religiosity is primarily associated with the decline of religion itself. The revitalization of Orthodoxy in Russia has repeatedly attracted the attention of sociologists of religion (Bogachev, 2015). Belonging without believing, as we see it, can serve as one of the conceptual foundations for the sociological interpretation of empirically observable facts.
Applicability to the Contemporary Russian Situation
Russian sociological services have for many years consistently recorded a significant contrast between the percentage of those who identify as Orthodox and the percentage of so-called regulars, those who attend church at least once a month (see Figure 1). The graph shows that in recent years this percentage has been steadily growing, which is confirmed by FOM and VTsIOM data. Nevertheless, in absolute terms it remains relatively low, given that church attendance is at the centre of Orthodox religious practice. According to Canon 80 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, missing three consecutive Sunday services without a valid reason is grounds for excommunication.
Researchers have also repeatedly documented a low percentage of people whose religiosity is expressed in concrete actions: observing fasts, reading Scripture, participating in the sacraments of the Church, and similar practices. According to FOM data, as of 2013 only 9% of Orthodox Christians in Russia knew the dogma of the Holy Trinity (Dogma o Presvyatoy Troitse…, 2013). This dogma is central to the faith; the Nicene Creed is built around it, and accepting it is, properly speaking, what makes an individual a Christian. The survey was conducted on a sample of 1,500 people, and respondents’ knowledge was not tested: if a person stated that they knew the dogma, the answer was recorded as such.
Despite canonical rules stipulating that communion should be received no less than once every three weeks, only 2% of those who identified as Orthodox in a survey take communion more than once a month (Chastota prichastiya, 2011).
According to the Sreda research service, 69% of Orthodox Christians believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, which corresponds to the Catholic rather than the Orthodox position (Issledovanie Sredy…, 2016). Poor knowledge of the basics of theology among people who identify with Orthodoxy adds to the overall picture described above in the context of regular church attendance.
The question of who should be counted as a “genuine believer” is particularly difficult and contentious. When the sociologists of religion Dmitry Furman and Kimmo Kaariainen encountered this challenge, they developed the following criteria for a “traditional believer”: (1) self-identification as a believer; (2) belief in a God with whom one can enter into a personal relationship, rather than in a “life force”; (3) self-identification as Orthodox; and (4) either (a) church attendance at least once a month, or (b) frequent prayer (Kaariainen, Furman, 2007: 59). By these criteria, the proportion of such “traditional” believers as of 2025 does not exceed 20% of the total number of Orthodox.
At the same time, as Furman and Kaariainen observed, a pro-Orthodox consensus developed in Russia around the turn of the millennium that even atheists joined (Kaariainen, Furman, 2007: 20).
The observed discrepancy between the number declaring Orthodox affiliation and the number of believers who actually put its precepts into practice is extremely interesting from a sociological point of view. It is difficult to agree with researchers who speak of Orthodox “quasi-religiosity.” We consider this term entirely inapplicable to describing the gap between declared and actual religiosity; it was developed in a completely different context and describes a fundamentally different class of phenomena, including New Age, Marxism in the USSR, environmentalism, mindfulness, and similar movements.
The concept of belonging without believing has significant interpretive potential in the context of the religious situation in Russia. A competing theoretical framework is Robert Bellah’s concept of civil religion. However, when speaking of civil religion in Russia, one should note its secular and statist character, grounded in traditional values but bearing only an indirect relationship to Orthodoxy as such. The key holiday from the perspective of civil religion in Russia is Victory Day rather than, say, Easter or Christmas.
The results of the following survey are telling. In November 2014, Russian citizens were offered two statements, one of which they could agree with, or they could express uncertainty and decline to answer:
- “For me, Orthodox faith and Russian citizenship are inseparable from each other.”
- “For me, Orthodox faith and Russian citizenship are different things; I do not mix them.”
Seventy-seven percent of respondents declined to answer, finding it difficult to choose between the options. The remaining 23% were almost evenly split, with a slight advantage for the first option (Pravoslavnaya vera i rossiyskoe grazhdanstvo…, 2014). This, in our view, is an additional argument in favour of the position that Orthodoxy as such has not become a consensual element of civil religion in Russia.
We suggest that the empirically observed gap between declared Orthodox affiliation and actual manifestations of religiosity can best be explained through the lens of the relationship between faith and belonging. As T.S. Pronina notes in a study devoted to the religious identity of contemporary Russians: “religious identity turns out to be merely a sub-identity within civic and general cultural identity” (Pronina, 2015: 219).
A separate area of debate within the sociology of religion concerns the mechanisms that generate the prevalence of belonging without believing, and the types of societies in which this mode of religious perception is most likely to emerge. We tentatively suggest that the prevalence of belonging without believing may be associated with:
- the significant role of a specific religion in ethnogenesis or state formation;
- sharp changes in social structure, for example, shock therapy during the transition from a planned to a market economy;
- significant levels of social conformism;
- state policies directed toward unification;
- a decline in institutional religiosity alongside the persistence of significant spiritual needs.
In this article we have analyzed the phenomenon of belonging without believing in relation to Orthodoxy in contemporary Russia. In our view, this concept is fully applicable to the religious situation in Russia. At the same time, the research task in the context of analyzing religious identity in post-socialist Russia is considerably broader. This theoretical framework appears highly promising, and in Russian sociology of religion it could be applied far more frequently to the analysis of various traditions.
References
Bogachev, M. I. (2015). The cause of the “revival” of Orthodoxy in Russia. Nauchnyi rezultat. Sotsiologiya i upravlenie, 1, 5-13. EDN TWDDIJ.
Davie, G. (2015). Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hervieu-Léger, D. (2001). Religion as a Chain of Memory. Rutgers University Press.
Kaariainen, K., Furman, D. (Eds.). (2007). New Churches, Old Believers - Old Churches, New Believers: Religion in Post-Soviet Russia. Moscow; St. Petersburg: Letniy sad.
McIntosh, E. (2015). Belonging without Believing: Church as Community in an Age of Digital Media. International Journal of Public Theology, 9, 131-155. DOI 10.1163/15697320-12341389.
Pronina, T. S. (2015). The “civic-religious” type of identity among contemporary Russians. Vestnik Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta im. A. S. Pushkina, 2(2), 210-220. EDN UIXHUV.