In Russia, Two Out of Three Trust Church

In Europe, only one out of three trusts their church.

Moscow (kath.net/KNA) 68 percent of the Russian people have shown in a recent questionnaire that they have trust in the Orthodox Church of their land. Only twelve percent have mistrust for the Church, as a public poll conducted by the religious information service >>Sreda<<.

A subscriber poll of the "Reader's Digest" (Stuttgart) of Europeans in 16 countrie shows that 38 percent distrust their churches, while 59 percent on the other hand have little or no confidence.

30 percent of Russians surveyed see a strong dependence of their church on the State, 25 percent see it as low. 30 percent of respondents want the official state religion to be Orthodoxy. The majority of 48 percent, however disagrees that church and state should remain separate.


53 percent appreciate the work of the Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarch Kirill I very much; another 40 percent rate it as mediocre, however, the remaining 7 percent below average.

In contrast, Europe (16 European countries including Russia), the Churches and Ecclesial Communities and their representatives, enjoy in comparison to other institutions, below-average confidence. This came from the aforementioned consumer survey by "Reader's Digest" (Stuttgart) which appeared at the end of March 2011. 38 percent of the approximately 33,000 respondents trust the churches there, 59 percent have little or no confidence in them.

The trust shown for churches in Germany is about a third (34 percent), while in the previous year was 40 percent. Even more dramatic is the fall in their trust in the Switzerland where it fell from 43 percent to 34 percent. There was only a slight loss in the prestige churches in Austria - from 37 percent to 36 percent.

In this pan-European survey, Russia was also included at the time, because the investigation "Reader's Digest European Trusted Brands" (Reader's Digest trusted brands) since 2001, has been conducted annually in the following countries: Belgium, Germany, Croatia, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Hungary.

Photo: (c) the Church in Need