The Levada polling center recently published the results of study into the religions of Russia. The largest religion in Russia is Orthodoxy with 79% of respondents considering themselves to be followers. The next largest faith at 6% are Muslim. The remaining religious faiths (Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, and others) are represented by no more than 1% of respondents each, the survey showed.

Since 2010, the number of Orthodox Christians in the country has increased by three percentage points, and the number of Muslims by at least two, reports Interfax, referring to experts at the Levada Center who, in September, conducted a representative survey of 1,600 Russians.

According to them, the number of those who do not consider themselves to no religion (agnostic) decreased in the same period from 10% to 7%. The number of atheists remained stable at 5%.

Three-quarters of respondents (73%) agreed with the viewpoint that, at present, many want to show their involvement in the faith and the church but few think it is sincere. Opposing this view were 14% of respondents, and 13% were undecided.

The survey revealed that the majority of those surveyed have no doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church is currently taking part in the activities of government, including 10% believe such participation is "very large", and 41% - "quite large." They do not agree 31% who call this part low or very low, said sociologists.

According to the Levada Center, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill received primarily positive responses from Russians. The question posed was: "What qualities do you think are inherent to Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church?" Respondents said that he is intelligent (50% of respondents think so), decent (30%), strong (28%), fair (23%), Good (23%), outstanding (21%), and selfless (17%).

Negative reactions occured much less frequently: not credible (6%), ordinary, hypocritical (6%), self-interested (4%), low (2%) and ugly (1%).