Translation of an article by Elena Strelkova, published in Forbes Young (Russia), 31 May 2026. Original in Russian →. Translated and published here with attribution.
Sunday mass instead of yoga, and clubs for keeping the fast — it seems that young people are increasingly declaring a religious affiliation. We explore why and how they are turning to faith, what questions they are seeking answers to, and how they are changing their way of life.
“Generation Z is flocking to church for community, faith, and dates,” writes The Wall Street Journal, while Barna Group reports that Christian Gen Zers attend church more frequently than Millennials, Generation X, or Baby Boomers. Similar processes are visible in Russia: the share of young people who identify as Orthodox has nearly doubled over the past few years, according to VTsIOM data for 2025. Forbes Young set out to understand why young people are coming to religion and what they are looking for there — god, support, or simply company.
Where God Lives
Today young people are not simply attending services and observing rituals — they are building their own communities around faith. Traditional formats are not disappearing but being supplemented by new ones: lecture series at churches, Orthodox cafés, film clubs. One of the most fashionable and forward-looking venues of this kind in Moscow is the Antipa Café-Refectory, located next to the Church of the Holy Martyr Antipas of Pergamon near Kolymažnyj Dvor. In the inner courtyard facing the Pushkin Museum, young people regularly gather to work, relax, or meet friends. You can drink tea or coffee, eat, and buy religious accessories at the church shop.
According to Stepan Buldakov, a 24-year-old seminary student, aspiring priest, and blogger, such spaces lower the barrier to entry into religion, especially for young people: “The main difficulty in bringing new people into the church is incomprehension. What is this, exactly? You light a candle — and then what? A café is something light, accessible, understandable. If it is easier for someone to enter a church through a café, thank god. The main thing is not to forget that we serve god, and not to shift the vector from ‘a café next to a church’ into ‘a business operating under religious cover’.”
Stepan himself has created a clothing brand called PisTis. “The idea arose once I had an audience — I realised I could give people something more than video content,” he says. “PisTis is Greek for ‘faith,’ and faith is the driving force of the brand. Its purpose is to donate a share of profits to churches that have very few parishioners and need major renovations or even to be built from scratch.” He works as a self-employed person; sales launched three months ago — revenue as of 28 May stood at 572,607 roubles. Stepan acknowledges that despite his Orthodox background, he tries to make pieces that are not entirely conventional: “I often draw inspiration from streetwear brands in the fashion industry.” His audience is varied, but buyers his own age make up the largest share: “I hope that in the future I will be able to create a space for these people — where you can get dressed, eat good Lenten food, and organise a pilgrimage to some monastery.”
The Path into Religion
Sometimes the point of entry into religion is not an offline space but social media. TikTok and Instagram have become places where young believers share encouraging Scripture passages, and priest-bloggers dissect memes and answer pointed questions. “These trends on TikTok and other social networks are genuinely visible: Zoomers talk about being on the verge of entering a monastery, promote the image of the believing TradWife, and take seriously the questions of god and meaning,” confirms religious studies scholar Nikita Obraztsov.
Even in social media it is not always easy to find someone to talk to about the things that really matter — but in a church community, according to 19-year-old Maria Panfilova from St. Petersburg, that space exists: “In an ordinary circle of friends we discuss plans, feelings, events — and that matters. But in a church community there is space for questions that have no ready answers: about the meaning of suffering, about prayer, about how to live with hope in uncertainty.”
The path into religion today can begin not with dogma and ritual but with the search for new friends and community, as happened with 28-year-old Keren Bulgak Bezdenezhnykh. “I always knew I had Jewish roots, but I never attended a community, and my knowledge of the tradition was very fragmentary. When I moved to Moscow from Kaliningrad, I learned that there were young Jewish communities here. That is how I found the Yahad Jewell club,” she says. “There I discovered for the first time that being Jewish and being an adherent of Judaism are inseparable — it means a person who follows the tenets of Judaism. The values of Judaism resonated very strongly with me, and I started going deeper. Gradually I began observing tzniut (rules relating to dress and behaviour), Shabbat, and kashrut.”
The demand for such communities is an attempt to supply what is missing in the contemporary city. “This is partly a question of what the young urban person is simply lacking. The gym, the co-working space, the university — these are places where people are near each other without being together. Zoomers will even stand in a self-checkout queue rather than go to a lonely cashier,” reflects Nikita Obraztsov. “Religious community has historically offered something different: a regular rhythm of shared practice, a common language for talking about what matters most. The hype around religious communities for Zoomers does not surprise me — compensatory mechanisms are at work. Such groups have a relatively low entry threshold; they offer accessible and pleasant connection with others without demanding anything in return.”
A Premium Subscription to Working on Yourself
The reasons young people turn to religion are varied. One of them is the need for stability. As Nikita Obraztsov explains, we live in an unstable world where it is difficult for a young person to look confidently toward tomorrow: property is almost inaccessible, and daily doomscrolling through social media generates additional anxiety. From the perspective of sociologist and political scientist Ronald Inglehart and professor of comparative politics Pippa Norris, a turn toward religion in this situation is logical, and in the Russian context is confirmed by survey data showing students turning to traditional spiritual practices precisely in periods of crisis.
In a stream of anxious news and crises, religion restores a sense of grounding, agrees Maria Panfilova: “For my generation, which grew up in a world of information, speed, and external success, the theme of inner silence and authenticity resonates strongly. We are tired of the image, and in religion we are looking not for aesthetics but for depth. But at the same time it matters to us that faith not be archaic — that it speak to us in the language of the heart, and not only in restrictions and rules.”
For some young people, faith becomes a way of dealing with anxiety, guilt, or a tool for self-examination. They recognise that confession and conversations with clergy help them make sense of themselves, but do not replace psychotherapy. “Judaism has a distinction between the divine soul (responsible for spiritual life) and the animal soul (responsible for physical life). And psychology is a language for communicating with the animal soul: resolving various problems, working through traumatic experiences, finding a way out of depression,” says Keren. “I would say that Judaism is a premium subscription to working on yourself, where you develop not only on a physical level but on a spiritual one. It became much easier for me in difficult situations — especially ones I cannot control — from understanding that this world is not managed by me, but by someone who definitely knows better what is best for me right now.”
A similar experience was lived by 28-year-old Muslim Jay Mamedov. “After discussing my observations and thoughts with a psychotherapist, I realised it was time to engage with my irrational, believing side. I remember him — a non-Muslim — saying to me: ‘Jay, you are either going toward yourself or away from yourself.’ I went toward myself. Things became calmer.”
Psychotherapy and religion do not compete — they address a similar task at different levels, summarises Sergei Popkovich, a working priest and psychologist. “From a Christian perspective, repentance (Greek: metanoia) is not only ‘beating one’s breast’ — it is a change of direction of the mind, the capacity to think and live in a fundamentally different way. Psychotherapy helps a person notice destructive patterns, cycles of behaviour, and assumptions, and find tools for changing them. Confession is a witness before god of the readiness to take responsibility for one’s life, to acknowledge one’s mistakes and imperfection — without being crushed by the weight of guilt.”
A Foundation, Not a Doctrine
Talking of a religious renaissance among young people is premature, considers Nikita Obraztsov, who points out that young people characteristically show “patchwork religiosity”: people often assemble their faith from pieces without attaching themselves to any single tradition. Such a person’s outlook may combine Christianity with yoga, vipassana meditation, and even astrology.
“Going to an event and taking a Christian quiz, photographing yourself with a flat white in an Orthodox café and reposting another witty video by a popular priest — that is one thing,” the religious studies scholar explains. “Becoming part of a church, participating in the sacraments, fasting, reading Scripture and patristic literature, making religion a full part of one’s life, giving up premarital sex and online toxicity — that is something else entirely.”
Many young people perceive religion as part of culture and a way of identifying themselves. “For a generation born into a race for material success, which has had time to watch its parents’ exhaustion from life on a hamster wheel, faith becomes an alternative way of legitimising oneself as ‘different’ — as someone living by rules other than the logic of endless consumption and burnout,” considers Sergei Popkovich. “At the same time, this often does not mean full agreement with the doctrine of a specific religious institution. For many young people, faith is above all an inner sense of self, a personal spiritual experience.”
For Jay Mamedov, as for many other young people, faith is not a response to trends or popular tendencies but a personal choice. “My faith has nothing to do with trends, global context, or social environment. It is a personal, quite intricate path,” he says. “This year I kept Ramadan for the second time in my life. Each day before breaking the fast, as is prescribed, I asked Allah for forgiveness for past and future sins. On the edge of the calendar I was using there was a quotation: ‘Every day of fasting for the sake of Allah removes the face of the one who fasts from the Fire by a distance equal to seventy years of travel.’ My mind understood neither hell nor these calculations, but there was a lump in my throat.”
Whether the younger generation’s turn toward religion will become mass or not — time will tell. But as Nikita Obraztsov notes, one thing is already clear: religious experience among young people is becoming more individual and more conscious.