Method of calculation of Christians in Russia (on the example of the Church of Ingria)

Alexey Igorevich Ivanenko PhD in Philosophy, assistant professor, High School of Technology and Energetics Saint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design (ulitsa Ivana Chernykh, 4, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 198095)
iwanenkoalexy@hotmail.com

Ivanenko A. I. Method of calculation of Christians in Russia (on the example of the Church of Ingria), Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2018, vol. 7, pp. 126–149.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2018-00007

Language: Russian

The article is devoted to the calculation method of Christians in Russia, because standard criteria of self-identity or church-visiting contradict to Christian dogmatics. For example, a nominal Christian can deny the existence of God. From other side, clerics can give incredible number of Christians. For Russia we have variative numbers: are there 4% believers or 80%? Author suggests that real number of Christians correlates strongly with the number of parishes, where religious rites (such as predicts and sacraments) exist. The article gives optimal number of Russian Christians based on modern statistics, Christian (Lutheran) dogmatics and evidence of priests. This number is calculated for situation in Lutheran Church of Ingria, where middle parish consists of one or two hundred believers. However, some Christians go to church from time to time and unregularly. They are «bad sheep», but they are Christians, who have a weak faith. Dogmatically, they are not good Christians because of sins. So, real middle number of one parish is 360 believers. Author suggests that it is an optimal number of believers for one parish. Real number of Christians for one confession is 360 multiply by number of parishes. So, author suggests that there are only 10 mln Christians in Russia: 9 mln of Orthodox Christians and 1 mln of the Protestants. But this number is true only for the beginning of the 21st century.

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Key words: denominations, parishes, Christians, Protestantism, Lutheranism, number of Christians

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/ivanenko-2018-en/

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