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Just because Americans do it doesn't make it normal...

From:

msk01.livejournal.com

Russian people do not like religions, but they love their traditions :)

To paint eggs, to christen babies, to read the burial service - these all are nice rituals "from our forefathers", but nobody really "believes" in Moses and his myths. A very few people in Russia ever read Bible and even less could remember full decalogue.

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"To paint eggs, to christen babies, to read the burial service - these all are nice rituals "from our forefathers", "

However none of this was observed during Soviet era, at least in my parents' and grandparents' families (and I believe the majority of people did not either). That's a 70 years' gap. So it cannot very well be called a tradition, I think.

From:

http://users.livejournal.com/_delly_/

Both my mom and her brother were christened in church, although born in soviet times in Leningrad in 1950s. And both were christened not by paretns, but by their grandmothers, when they spent their summer holidays in the village. So the tradition was kept in rural areas even in soviet times. In cities - true - religion was almost forgotten.

From:

la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com

exactly, that´s what I wrote above, giving the examples of my own family. Most kids were baptized, almost everyone always had coloured eggs at home. In villages they had churches and buried people with prayers and all. So it´s not true to say that religion completely disappeared.

From:

msk01.livejournal.com

>>In cities - true - religion was almost forgotten.

I was cristened in 1982 in Kuibyshev (Samara).
It's quite big city, huh? :)

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khathi.livejournal.com

Well, about jabbing -- I'd say feel free, if someone get offended they'll tell you, and quite vocally, but hardly sue you about it or anything. ^_^ And about tradition -- no, people didn't "stop believing". Some really stopped, but secularist, atheistic and anticlericsl tradition were already considerably strong in Russia much before revolution, and that's where antireligious drive diuring Soviet time started from.

And many people who called themselves Christians weren't overly religious to begin with, just visiting the church couple of times per month. So those people simply stopped doing that, and those who still believed generally simply stopped expresisng their beliefs openly, going underground -- at least until early 40'es.

You see, already in late 30'es antireligious drive eased considerably, when Stalin finally secured his position and purged most of the radical elements within the party. After that he dropped the "World revolution" theory, stopped to press internationalistic ideas and generally began exploiting the nationalist trends whithin the society.

Being an Orthodox priest (albeit unordained) himself by education, he perfectly undestood the psotion religion held for people, especially when the war started and patriotic drive was in full. Stalin even used "Brothers and Sisters", a classical priesly words whenrelating to the people in his speeches, and the church finally was permitted again, even if grudgingly, because it helped to improvee moral of the populace.

So tradition never really stopped, even if most of the people is not religious nowadays. And "believe in State" never, in fact, actually existed, at least after 60'es -- people just pretended that they believe in the official ideology, and powers that be accepted that, unless there wasn't open dissent.

PS: it's "Доброй Пасхи!" actually.

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Well, about jabbing -- I'd say feel free, if someone get offended they'll tell you, and quite vocally, but hardly sue you about it or anything.

Which is why I'll never want to leave Russia

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However, where I live now, no one will start badmouthing you loudly in the street just because they don't like your appearance. And no one will discriminate you when you apply for a job just because you happen to have a wrong type of surname or a wrong gender. And that's why I'll never want to return to Russia. But this, I believe, is unrelated to the discussion's subject.

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I don't know where you live, then, but it's certainly not USA, Britain or Russia...

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Right, neither of those... And yes, you are right about the flame. (I can freeze this thread if you think it is irrelevant to the discussion, please let me know.)

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No it's fine: I am just an extreme cynic in general and especially when it comes to the whole "people don't discriminate at whim here" bit: I actually discriminate against THOSE kind of people!

The world is in general NOT fair: if you think it is, it's just because you're on the good side of the coin...

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The world is in general NOT fair
---
Alas, that's true.

From:

marta-mb.livejournal.com

Funny, indeed!

From:

cabik.livejournal.com

I'm 23 years old and i'm not religious. And most townspeople in Russia are not religious. But all my relatives and friends who live out of Moscow, S.Peterburg and big cities are veru devout. Maybe, many russians don't believe in God, but they try to hold sacred their traditions and their milennial history.

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I'm 23, I'm a native of Moscow and I am a Christian. Actually we are not that few :-)
During the Soviet era Christianity did go underground. The powers that be didn't succeed to wipe Christianity totally out but it was virtually prohibited (if someone says it was not so, think of atheist propaganda and anti-Christian periodicals and books ardently promoted by the state and schools that were all state-controlled). Being Christian became for a lot of people a way of being anti-Soviet.
People in villages, as far as I know, didn't really stop believing.
The official position was something like, there still are Christian freaks around but they are few and won't cause trouble.
The Soviet power succeeded in spreading myths like 'Christians are all anti-science and non-educated' but they also did what they could to make it reality: for instance, people who graduated from universities were actively prevented from entering the few religious educational institutions. Those who did were punished: members of their families could lose work etc. The same old Soviet stuff actually, nothing special.
Now I would say there is a dreadful mixture of beliefs and disbeliefs. A lot of non-religious people are so because modern European culture tends to be secular and/or anti-religious.

Yeah, and a P.S.: the belief of: "the only belief is belief in the State" was always for uneducated people or ardent communists. Remember, a lot of communist party members only joined the party for career reasons. So few people actually took Soviet propaganda seriously. A lot of what was declared public opinion in USSR wasn't that, it was just propaganda and many people understood that.

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Yes, and Stalin was not a priest. He didn't finish his education.

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Can you read? :)
>Being an Orthodox priest (albeit unordained) himself by education

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As far as I remember he didn't take his final exams...Anyway, calling him an Orthodox priest is too much, I think.

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Well, I am 39, a native of Moscow, and I am a Christian :) I converted myself when I was 12, just from reading the Gospel. I said to myself, "if this f***** State and this b**** Party are so against the religion, then there must be something really good in it" :))) I started to read Gospel, then the entire Bible, and there went the good Soviet boy :)

From:

gera.livejournal.com

"if this f***** State and this b**** Party are so against the religion, then there must be something really good in it" :)))

Funny, I thought along the same lines at some point, but came to the conclusion that "Nah, this is just another kind of ideology".

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Well, I have never encountered organized religion until I was 20, and who I encountered when I did, was Fr. Alexander Men. So the ideology side happily passed me by :))

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You can judge the degree to which I wasn't into ideology side by the fact that I played in a punk rock band when a teenager, being quite religious at the same time :) For me, it was more "David danced before the Lord with all his might" kind of thing :)

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Yes, my brother did the same thing at 14, and I, at 29. Our parents and grandparents were never religious, even though my mother's parents were from the country, born in peasants' families: my mother was baptized as a child and she used to bake at Easter but that was the end of it. And yes, my maternal grandmother went to the church sometimes around Eastertime. However she did not observe any kind of church calendar and did not fast / do Lent, nor did she ever read Bible. I think it was more a social thing for her (as all the other old ladies in Russia - they were/are lonely, there was/is not enough social life for this age/gender group, and in the church they could meet other babushkas and have some existence outside the household chore-ridden life. I believe that my brother and I were the first active churchgoers in three generations.

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Remember, a lot of communist party members only joined the party for career reasons. So few people actually took Soviet propaganda seriously. A lot of what was declared public opinion in USSR wasn't that, it was just propaganda and many people understood that.

Yes: not-so-unrelated, why I think Eastern Europeans are more intelligent than others... Met a French-Romanian whose parents tried to go to America and weren't allowed, so they went to France instead, (a slightly-less insane country): "If I had to join the communist party to go to university, I'd have done the same thing"

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(sorry, make that Romanian-French)

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Do you mean joining the party is a better thing to do than flee?

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If I had to join the communist party to go to university, I'd have done the same thing"

Boy, it's amazing how little people read on online forums.

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"People in villages, as far as I know, didn't really stop believing."

As far as I know, most of them never really started believing. Read Leskov or Chekhov, they give a very truthful picture of what Christianity was in a Russian village in XIX - early XX century.

From:

cabik.livejournal.com

:-) All posts are written by natives from Moscow. Pretty funny! :-))) Does any body here from native-English speakers?
Дожили...

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Are you expecting native English speakers to be able to tell you about religious traditions or the current situation in Russia? That would be strange, don't you think so?

From:

angstzeit.livejournal.com

I couldn't tell you about the current religious status in Russia. But even as a silly (non-religious) American I think people are the same in that one sure way to keep something going (like religious tradition) is for the State to absolutely forbid it. ;)

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"one sure way to keep something going (like religious tradition) is for the State to absolutely forbid it. ;)"

There is a point in that. To be a believer in Soviet era, you had to truly believe, not just go through the motions because it is fashionable or "everybody does it".

From:

gera.livejournal.com

In the Soviet times most people in urban areas did not believe/were not religious. This has changed somewhat, as far as I can judge, but manifests itself more in following rituals than actually believing.

From:

alon_68

People in Russia are indeed rather pagans than Christians. Some beliefs from avoiding black cats to belief in the charged water (see Alan Chumak) are much stronger than Christianity.

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Yes... recently an old lady ( a Christian, too) told me that one should not sit crossing one's legs in the church because "the energy will go through your legs in the wrong way".

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Oh boy. The energy. I'll tell you more: one very seriously believing person, an Orthodox Christian, church-going for two decades, tried to convince me that when I cross myself I should put my fingers exactly into my belly button, otherwise I'd lock the most important chakra.

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megilla.livejournal.com

I'd like to point at slight difference between church, religion and faith. So there are lots of religious people, but Faith is very sparse thing.

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upthera44.livejournal.com

When I spent a month in Novgorod and briefly was in St. Petersburg and Moscow, I noticed that there were a few Catholic churches, maybe 1 Catholic church for every 10 or 15 Orthodox churches. What proportion of religious in Russia are Catholic?

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