College Students' Attitudes toward Religion

• Published in: Russian education and society Vol. 51; no. 6; pp. 80 - 89
• Main Authors: Klimova, S. M, Martynova, G. V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: M 01.06.2009
• Subjects: College Students; Foreign Countries; Political Attitudes; Politics; Religion; Religions; Religious Factors; Role of Religion; Russia; Russian; State Church Separation; Student Attitudes; Student Surveys; Young Adults; Russia
• ISSN: 1060-9393
• DOI: 10.2753/RES1060-9393510606

The rise of the present generation of young people in their 20s came during the 1990s, when the vacuum of form was being hastily filled with just about any content. At that time a fashion for churchly themes, traditional and nontraditional religiousness, arose. In the opinion of Deacon Andrei Kuraev, the most prominent phenomenon of religious life in Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s was not a rebirth of the Orthodox religion but rather a rapid rise of occultism. To what extent has the situation changed in the religious worldview of young people in the first few years of the 21st century? In this paper, the authors attempt to find out by examining results of a survey carried out among students at Belgorod State University in May and June 2007. Data on Russian students show that there is a large gap between declaring oneself a believer or identifying oneself with a religion and actually participating in it. Students are in favor of keeping religion and politics separate, and so in general show very weak support for recent statements about making Russian Orthodoxy the new state religion. (Contains 4 figures.)