The religiosity of the orthodox christians in russia by the first 20 years of the soviet secular regime

There is popular a point of view that religiosity of the Orthodox Christians in Russia in the first decades of Soviet power was still at a high level. The most striking evidence of itis consideredthe phenomenon of the new Martyrs and Confessors who suffered for the faith in the years of the persecution. The aim of this article is to show that the level of religiosity of the Orthodox population in Russia was low alreadyafter the first 20 years of the Soviet regime, that laid the basis for further secularization of the public and individual consciousness of the Orthodox population of the USSR. Due to the fact that in the period from 1917 to 1937 systematic scientific studies of religiosity have not been conducted. Statistical materials of the census of 1937 contain information about the attitude of the Soviet population to religion, as well as data that indirectly indicate the state of Orthodox religiosity (data by gender, age, literacy, family status). The census of 1937 shows that by the end of the first 20 years of the Soviet regime in Russia only older woman living in rural areas were religious. According to the publication of Moscow Patriarchate in 2011 in the Russian Orthodox Church canonized by name only 1776 of the new Martyrs and Confessors who suffered for the entire period of Soviet persecution. Statistics about not-canonized new martyrs and Confessors of the Orthodox faith during the persecution ambiguous is doubt. The numbers range from 500 to 750 thousand people in the period from 1917 to 1952. In the database of the St. Tikhon's Orthodox University, developed under the leadership of Emelyanov N.E., currently contains 35 thousand names "for Christ suffered". The ratio of the data, which leads Emelyanov N.E. (in total, approx. 300 thousand for the period 1917-1937) with the statistics of the all-Union census of 1937, shows that out of 41 621 572 Russians who considered themselves as Orthodox, proved their faith through martyrdom of faith 0,72%. The statistics available, both directly and indirectly indicate the overall lowest level of religiosity of the Orthodox population of Russia after the first 20 years of the Soviet regime, against which the truly religious person, affirming their deep religiosity martyrdom and witnessing of faith ("the core" of the Orthodox) was approximately 1%. This situation became the basis for the further secularization of public and individual consciousness of citizens of the Soviet Union.

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