(no subject)

[quem98.livejournal.com]

So what is the proper way to say that one practises or is a follower of a certain relgion?

ie: The majority of Latvians are Lutheran.

Comments

[anc-q.livejournal.com]

Christians
(Roman) Catholics
Protestants

[quem98.livejournal.com]

Yes. I know. But how do you say something like that in Russian?

[anc-q.livejournal.com]

Христиане
Католики
Протестанты
Атеисты - atheists

[oryx_and_crake]

The majority of Latvians are Lutheran.
Латыши - по большей части лютеране.

The majority of Russians are atheists, and some of them are Russian Orthodox.
Русские - в основном атеисты, но некоторые из них - православные.

The French people are Catholics.
Французы - католики.

[oryx_and_crake]

Please note that you don't capitalise the names of religions in Russian.

[gordin.livejournal.com]

Большинство латвийцев - лютеране.

Any religion (and it's adept's) name can be found in a dictionary, I think. :/

[whitest-owl.livejournal.com]

If you are talking about some major religion, you can just say: Большинство латышей лютеранe.
About followers of some abstract religion: "последователи такого-то учения..." - "followers of that teachings..."
The member of small sect you would call "член секты" or "сектант".

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

The usual construction in the literary language is исповедовать + name of the religion (that is, a noun).

Большинство латышей исповедуют лютеранство.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Actually, it varies. One would less likely say большинство французов исповедуют католицизм, but rather большинство французов - католики or, more formally, большинство французов - члены Римско-католической церкви instead.

[ex-dmitri83798.livejournal.com]

To me "члены" sounds a little bit bureaucratical in this context. I think that it is correct to say "большинство французов принадлежат римско-католической церкви".

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

In this case, you cannot say "принадлежат римско-католической церкви", only "принадлежат к римско-католической церкви" - they're not the Rome's property, they're the church members :)

[welgar.livejournal.com]

This is a bit literary but quite popular way of saying someone practises a religion.

[ex-dmitri83798.livejournal.com]

I'd rather say that this is neutral official style.

[mtyukanov.livejournal.com]

Some catches:

Orthodox Christians are православные христиане or just православные, but Orthodox Jews are ортодоксальные иудеи. (Orthodox in other contexts, such as 'orthodox method', is 'ортодоксальный'), too. Jews as a religious affiliation are иудеи, but Jews as a people are евреи.

Hindus are sometimes called индуисты, and sometimes индусы. The latter is often confused with индийцы (people of India), so it's better to use the former.

Tao is дао, and its followers are даосы or даосисты.

[beekjuffer.livejournal.com]

"Адепт" для единственного числа.
но для множественного лучше - "Большинство латышей исповедуют лютеранство".