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Religious Intolerance among Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Russia

Vyacheslav Karpov; Elena Lisovskaya

Online Publication Date: 01 December 2008

To cite this Article Karpov, Vyacheslav and Lisovskaya, Elena(2008)'Religious Intolerance among Orthodox Christians and Muslims in

Russia',Religion, State and Society,36:4,361 377

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09637490802442975 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637490802442975

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Religion, State & Society, Vol. 36, No. 4, December 2008

Religious Intolerance among Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Russia1

VYACHESLAV KARPOV & ELENA LISOVSKAYA

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ABSTRACT Religious intolerance (the unwillingness to grant religious liberties to other faiths) among Russias Orthodox Christians and Muslims is widespread, as our 2005 national survey data (2972 interviews) show. The intolerance is strongest among the Orthodox in the largely non-Muslim areas of Russia and among both faith groups in the conict-torn Caucasus. Mutual tolerance is highest in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The intolerance has more to do with reactionary ideological inuences and regional socio-political conditions than with Orthodox and Muslim core religious beliefs and practices. Orthodox-Muslim intolerance reects a broader popular hostility to religious freedom in Russia. Fuelled by Russias current undemocratic tendencies, this hostility poses a threat to Eurasian stability and calls for eorts to lessen ethno-religious tensions. Such eorts need to include systematic sociological monitoring of religious intolerance, and this study is a rst step in this direction.

The Problem Recently there have been numerous reports about incidents of OrthodoxMuslim intolerance in various parts of Russia. In some cities, groups acting in the name of Orthodoxy have initiated successful bans on building mosques. In other places (such as Yaroslavl, Sergiyev Posad and Vladimir) mosques have been attacked. At the same time, Islamic radicals in the North Caucasus have referred to Orthodox Christians as enemies of Chechens and other Muslim peoples. Symptomatically, on 20 October 2005, in a statement on the website Kavkaz-Center, Chechen separatist leaders accused the Russian Orthodox Church of participation in a genocidal war against Muslims and declared a ban on all of the churchs activities in the Caucasus (Zayavleniye, 2005). In November 2006 the leader of the Islamists in KabardinoBalkaria, Amir Seifulla (Astemirov), declared a war against the indels throughout Russia (Organizator, 2006). In recent years serious tensions among Orthodox and Muslim leaders have surrounded debates on religion in state schools and other aspects of churchstate relations. The spread and intensity of such incidents point to the importance and timeliness of research on religious intolerance among Muslims and Christians in Russia and its regions. In particular, survey research could show how widespread and strong ChristianMuslim intolerance is, and to what extent it reects the nature of Christian and Islamic religiosity rather than ethnic, social and political inuences. This would
ISSN 0963-7494 print; ISSN 1465-3974 online/08/040361-17 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09637490802442975

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clarify, with obvious policy implications, the prospects for reducing religious tensions. Yet systematic sociological research on MuslimChristian religious intolerance is remarkably rare worldwide. Researchers know little about the extent to which Christians and Muslims in various parts of the world are unwilling to put up with each other and why. Our paper addresses these timely but understudied issues. Prior to our study, a handful of publications addressed the resurgence of religious intolerance in Russia (Filatov and Lunkin, 1999; Krasikov and Tokareva, 2006). However, they did not provide systematic empirical evidence showing the spread, intensity and determinants of intolerance among the Orthodox and Muslims. Meanwhile, Russia is one of the largest lands where Muslims and Christians have coexisted in peace and conict for over a thousand years, which makes it an excellent case for understanding the dynamics of MuslimChristian conict and coexistence. Using representative survey data, we show that OrthodoxMuslim intolerance is widespread in Russia. Orthodox Christians strongly oppose granting religious liberties to Muslims. Similarly, in some Muslim areas there is strong intolerance of the Orthodox. Thus popular support for religious freedom in Russia is very weak even for its traditional and historically predominant faiths. Next we nd that the intolerance among Russias Christians and Muslims varies greatly by region, and regional dierences shed light on its causes. Importantly, some of the highest intolerance levels are found among Russian Christians who live in the areas with negligibly small Muslim populations. Mutual tolerance is much greater in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, the two regions where large Orthodox and Muslim populations have long coexisted peacefully. The war-torn North Caucasus shows strong ChristianMuslim intolerance. Finally, we nd that mutual intolerance has relatively little to do with the core religious beliefs and practices of Orthodox and Muslims. It is more closely related to peoples beliefs about religions than to religious beliefs as such. Thus ethnocentric views of ones own and other faiths, opposition to granting religions equal rights and negative stereotypes about Christianity and Islam increase mutual intolerance. The intolerance is further aggravated by secular inuences, including ethnic prejudice, reactionary political orientations and an unwillingness to put up with dissent and nonconformity. However, while these phenomena may be alien to religion normatively (that is, theologically and traditionally) dened, they appear absorbed by the popular religious culture of ordinary Orthodox and Muslims in contemporary Russia. Thus we suggest that greater commitment to the fundamentals of Orthodoxy and Islam hardly makes Russians more intolerant. At the same time, reducing intolerance may be impossible without serious changes in popular interpretations of Orthodoxy and Islam that have absorbed ethnocentric, prejudicial and illiberal beliefs so common in the political, ideological and psychological environments in which Christians and Muslims currently practise their faiths in Russia. Religious Intolerance: Conceptualisation and Measurement Social scientists have conducted much research on tolerance of such groups as communists, atheists or homosexuals, but have done little empirical exploration of religious tolerance. Moreover, although the latter term is broadly used, its interpretations are often vague and hard to implement in research and policy analysis. Against this background, we have introduced a conceptualisation of religious tolerance as the willingness to grant religious freedom to people and groups of other faiths. Accordingly, religious intolerance means the refusal to grant such freedom to

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these people and groups. As we have explained elsewhere (Karpov and Lisovskaya, 2006, 2007a, b) this conceptualisation builds on historical and philosophical studies of religious toleration (Zagorin, 2003) as well as on sociological research on support for civil liberties (for example, Stouer, 1955; Sullivan et al., 1982; McClosky and Brill, 1983; Gibson, 1992; Gibson and Duch, 1993). It is also consistent with the notion of religious freedom as a fundamental human right (Karpov and Lisovskaya, 2006). This approach distinguishes between religious intolerance and prejudice. For example, negative attitudes towards Islam may or may not translate into the unwillingness to grant Muslims the right to worship freely. At the same time, those supporting Muslims rights do not necessarily view Islam positively. Furthermore, we dierentiate between abstract support for religious freedom, which by itself is a dubious indicator of tolerance, and concrete attitudes in concrete situations. For instance, those who abstractly support the idea of religious freedom for all may be reluctant to grant it to specic religious minorities in their home towns. For this reason, our conceptualisation of religious intolerance focuses on the extent to which people in a given social context are unwilling to grant specic religious liberties to outgroups. What specic religious liberties do we mean? Since interfaith tensions typically build around negative reactions to public rather than private expressions of faith, our survey indicators deal with the former. They include peoples unwillingness to allow religious outgroups to build places of worship, preach publicly, establish confessional schools, publish and engage in other activities of this kind. In line with this approach, we asked Orthodox Christians if, in their home towns, they would allow Muslims to build mosques, open Islamic schools, preach on television, do charitable work and so on. Similarly, we asked Muslims if they would support the same activities by Orthodox Christians (see the full list of questions in the Appendix). This questionnaire allowed us to determine whether or not, and how strongly, Christians and Muslims opposed granting specic religious freedoms to each other. Orthodox and Muslim respondents were asked eight questions. Thus, we obtained eight indicators of intolerance, which were analysed separately as well as part of cumulative indices of religious intolerance among Christians and Muslims. Theoretically, opposition to public expressions of faith can reect peoples commitment to a secular public space devoid of open manifestations of any religion, including their own. However, there are two reasons to believe that what we measure in this study is indeed religious intolerance of other faiths rather than such a secularist opposition to public expressions of all faiths. First, the data show that most of Russias Orthodox and Muslims are accepting of public expressions of their respective faiths but not of their neighbours. For instance, in our survey 30 per cent of the Orthodox said that foundations of Orthodoxy should be taught as a required course in state-run schools, and 60 per cent said that such a course should be oered as an option. Thus, 90 per cent of the Orthodox would accept teaching foundations of their faith in state-run schools in some form. Yet only 13 per cent would grant Muslims the right to teach the foundations of Islam. Similarly, 90 per cent of Muslims said that foundations of Islam should be taught in state-run schools (23 per cent saying it should be compulsory and 67 per cent saying it should be optional), but only 29 per cent would allow the Orthodox to teach their faith. Second, multivariate statistical analyses that we are preparing to publish elsewhere show that the eight indicators we use are closely interrelated (for example, those who do not want Muslims to fundraise are likely also to oppose their right to preach or teach). To use a statistical term, these analyses point to an underlying latent variable with which our eight indicators are closely associated, and of which they all are manifest expressions. This underlying

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variable can legitimately be called religious intolerance. In other words, manifest opposition to building mosques or teaching Islam in schools in most cases expresses an underlying generalised religious intolerance towards Muslims rather than a commitment to a secular public square. How was the Evidence Collected? This paper is based primarily on evidence from our international collaborative study Religious Intolerance among Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Russia: How Strong is it and Why?. The study involved a representative national survey conducted in Russia in June 2005 using a national probability area sample of the adult household population. In order better to represent Russias Muslims (as well as the Orthodox residing in majority Islamic areas) the survey included four oversamples from the predominantly Muslim regions of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan. Overall, 2972 in-person interviews lasting on average slightly more than one hour were conducted. Of the 2972 interviews, 1651 were part of Russias national sample, and 1321 more were from oversamples in Muslim regions. The response rate (measured as the ratio of completed interviews to the total number of attempted contacts) was 64 per cent.

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Findings Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Russia: Basic Facts The problem of religious intolerance we discuss in this paper potentially involves millions and millions of people and thousands of religious organisations in Russia. Indeed, Orthodoxy and Islam together account for the vast majority of traditional religious aliations and organisations. The press service chief of the Moscow Patriarchate Fr Vladimir Vigilyansky sarcastically notes that sociological estimates of the number of Orthodox Christians in Russia vary from 1 to 90 per cent (Vigilyansky, 2007). This sarcasm, however, seems misplaced. Simply, low estimates are based on strict criteria of religious adherence (consistency of belief and practice), while high ones reect self-identications. In our survey over 80 per cent of all Russians (which would mean nearly 116 out of 143 million) and close to 90 per cent of ethnic Russians identied themselves as Orthodox Christians. Percentages of those who share basic Orthodox beliefs and regularly practise their faith are dramatically smaller. Even using rather soft criteria of religiosity (including relatively consistent core beliefs and relatively active practice), in our study we estimated that only 10 per cent of self-identied Orthodox could be considered religious in a traditional sense. When stricter criteria are applied, proportions of traditional believers drop to single digits. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) enjoys a remarkable public trust which in our survey was surpassed only by Russians condence in their president. According to the Moscow Patriarchate of the ROC, in 2005 there were 12,665 Orthodox parishes and 433 monasteries in Russia (Statisticheskiye, 2005). The number of Muslims in Russia is a hotly debated and politically contested issue. In our survey 3.1 per cent of Russian citizens identied themselves as Muslims, and this is consistent with other reliable surveys conducted in Russia in the last 15 years. However, probability sample surveys may underrepresent minorities concentrated in small towns and villages. We therefore used a dierent way to estimate the number of

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Muslims. Using the 2002 Russian census data, we calculated that the traditionally Islamic ethnic groups account for 9.4 per cent of Russias population (roughly 14 million people). In our survey, in these ethnic groups up to 80 per cent identied themselves as Muslims. If the census data are reliable, then no more than 78 per cent of Russias population will be self-identied Muslims. As was the case with the Orthodox, traditional beliefs and practices among self-identied Muslims are not so common. No more than 20 per cent in this group combine relatively consistent monotheist beliefs with relatively active practice. This is close to the estimate of 2.8 million practising Muslims provided by Walters (2006). Several regions have an especially high concentration of Muslims. Among them, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan also have large Orthodox populations. By contrast, in the North Caucasus recent hostilities have resulted in the emigration of non-Muslims, leaving Muslim populations in overwhelming majorities (for example 92 per cent in Dagestan). According to Russias Justice Ministry in 2006 there were nearly 3700 ocially registered Islamic organisations in Russia (Svedeniya, 2006). However, the actual number may be much greater because many Muslim groups (for example radical jamaats2 in the Caucasus) are opposed to the Spiritual Boards (ocial regional Muslim governing bodies) and avoid registration. Although Orthodoxy and Islam are legally considered traditional religions with formally equal rights, our data show that there is a strong opposition among ordinary Russian to granting equal rights to these religions in practice. Moreover, the aforementioned relatively low traditional religiosity does not preclude widespread religious intolerance. How Widespread is OrthodoxMuslim Religious Intolerance? OrthodoxMuslim intolerance is widespread, and Russias Orthodox are overall less tolerant of Muslims than the latter are of the former. Levels of mutual tolerance by specic religious activity are shown in Figure 1. It can be seen that only 57 per cent of the Orthodox would allow Muslims to build a mosque in their home town, while 72 per cent of Muslims would permit the building of an Orthodox church. About 30 per cent of the Orthodox would allow the public preaching of Islam, compared to 44 per cent of Muslims who would allow the public preaching of Orthodoxy. Both Orthodox and Muslims are especially opposed to the teaching of their neighbours faith in state-run schools: only 13 per cent of the Orthodox and 29 per cent of Muslims would be in favour. This is a divisive and potentially explosive issue considering the recent introduction of courses on Orthodoxy in state schools in some regions. Generally, with the exception of building mosques and doing charitable work, less than half of the Orthodox would grant Muslims religious liberties. Meanwhile ve out of eight religious activities of the Orthodox would be allowed by more than half of all Muslims. Muslims greater tolerance of the Orthodox does not by itself suggest that they are generally more willing to put up with other faiths. The Orthodox are Russias dominant majority, and it would be impracticable for its Muslim or other minorities to question the majoritys right to practise its faith. As shown below, in regions where Islam is predominant, dierences in tolerance among Orthodox Christians and Muslims are much smaller. Furthermore, religious intolerance towards the Jews and western churches is slightly stronger among Muslims than among the Orthodox (Karpov and Lisovskaya, 2007a).

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Figure 1. Religious tolerance among the Orthodox (N 1331) and Muslims (N 833) in Russia by religious activity. (Numbers indicate the percentage of those who would allow a particular activity.)

The Importance of Regional and Local Dierences Russia is known for the tremendous ethno-cultural and religious diversity of its regions. Regional dierences prove crucial for understanding the state and origins of tolerance among Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Russia. We compared levels of OrthodoxMuslim tolerance in four traditionally Islamic regions. We also compared tolerance in these regions with that in Russia in general. In addition, we looked at the variation of tolerance in some of Russias other regions and in selected cities. To provide a salient illustration of regional dierences we computed average levels (also known as mean values) of tolerance by area. These averages, which may range from 8.0 to 78.0, reect regional populations tolerance of all eight religious activities we asked about, from mosque or church building to fundraising. The higher the numbers, the more tolerance they show (an eight-point level would indicate a full tolerance of all religious activities, which is hard to nd in Russia). The lower the

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averages, the less tolerance they reect. When numbers drop to near or below zero, they mean strong intolerance. Figure 2 compares tolerance averages in the four traditionally Islamic regions with the general Russian sample (see Table 1 in the Appendix for a detailed comparison of tolerance by region and activity). The comparison yields three facts reecting a consistent pattern. First, the strongest religious intolerance is among the Orthodox in Russia outside the traditionally Islamic regions, which accounts for a vast majority of the countrys Christians. Mutual intolerance is strong in two majority conict-torn Muslim regions of the North Caucasus (Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria). Yet it is slightly less than the intolerance shown by the Orthodox majority outside Islamic regions. Finally mutual tolerance is greatest in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan where sizeable Orthodox and Muslim populations have coexisted in peace and relative stability since the Soviet collapse. Russia (excluding oversamples from Islamic regions) is 80 per cent Orthodox and has only 3 per cent of Muslims. Thus most Russian Christians have few if any Muslim neighbours. Yet precisely in this population we see the strongest intolerance towards Muslims. As shown in Figure 2, tolerance of Muslims drops there to a sub-zero level. Remarkably, within Russia, intolerance of Muslims is strongest in some areas with very small Islamic minorities. Indeed, the tolerance average is at Russias absolute low of 72.4 in the Central-Chernozem region, which is not known for a sizeable Islamic presence. In this heartland region Russian Christians are even less tolerant of Muslims than they are in the North Caucasus areas neighbouring traditionally Islamic lands (72.1). In western nations, the largest and most cosmopolitan cities usually show more tolerance. This is not the case in Russia. In Moscow and St Petersburg, the countrys wealthiest and best educated cities, there is less tolerance of Muslims (71.1) than in Russia generally (70.3). Counterintuitive as it may seem, this nding is consistent with what some other studies of prejudice and intolerance in Russia have recently shown. For instance, a 2006 study by the Moscow-based Public Opinion Foundation shows that Muscovites and megacity-dwellers in general (which includes both Moscow and St Petersburg), as well as younger people with higher education and income, show higher than average levels of ethnic intolerance. They tend to be slightly

Figure 2. Average levels of Orthodox-Muslim tolerance by region. (Numbers indicate average tolerance by region on a scale where 8.0 is the highest and 78.0 the lowest tolerance level possible.)

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more often irritated by people of other ethnicities, and more willing to support banning and deporting certain nationalities from their cities (Kertman, 2006). As shown below, ethnic prejudice is associated with religious intolerance. Therefore it is unsurprising that the wealthy and educated megacities show high levels of both. The population of Tatarstan is 48 per cent Muslim and 42 per cent Orthodox, while in Bashkortostan the ratio is the reverse: 50 per cent Orthodox to 40 per cent Muslim. As shown above in Figure 2, both republics have relatively high levels of Orthodox Muslim tolerance (four to almost ve points out of eight possible). This contradicts Starks theoretical prediction that two particularistic religious groups to the extent that they perceive one another as equally matched . . . will be reluctant to risk violent conict, but relations will always be shaped by barely concealed hatred and contempt (Stark, 2001, p. 233). Both regions have sustained political stability since the Soviet collapse, and ethno-religious tensions have never escalated there into large-scale violence. This relatively peaceful atmosphere was reinforced by the regional authorities suppression of separatism and their policies of balancing Tatar and Bashkir ethno-nationalism with loyalty to the Russian state. Similarly, the authorities in both regions have been known for their eorts to curb the spread of radical Islam in collaboration with established and politically loyal Muslim leaders. The situation is dramatically dierent in Dagestan, which is 92 per cent Muslim and only 7 per cent Orthodox, and in Kabardino-Balkaria, which is 75 per cent Muslim and 22 per cent Orthodox. As shown in Figure 2 above, both regions have some of the lowest levels of interfaith tolerance. Tolerance does not rise in either region above a one-point mark on our eight-point scale. Perhaps to some extent the overwhelming Islamic majorities account for a strong intolerance towards Orthodox minorities. This appears similar to the predominant sentiment in non-Muslim Russia towards its small Islamic minority. Even so, tolerance towards the Orthodox in both regions is higher than tolerance towards Muslims in heartland Russia. However, the logic of numbers does not explain why Orthodox minorities in the two regions show so little tolerance to their Muslim majorities (by contrast, we have seen that in non-Islamic Russia the Muslim minority is remarkably tolerant towards the Orthodox). More plausible explanations of mutual intolerance may have to do with the political, socio-economic and demographic environment of the regions. Mutual negativity has multiple causes. Let us consider some of them. The spread of radical Islam in the North Caucasus was likely to result in greater intolerance towards non-Muslims. In turn, the reactions of Moscow and local authorities to Islamist and separatist movements have been marked by intolerance towards free expression of Islamic religiosity. In recent years the authorities in the Caucasus have often portrayed any opposition they have encountered as part of a Wahhabi underground, thus feeding suspicion and intolerance, which only exacerbate Muslim radicalism. The vicious cycle of hostility has peaked in armed conicts. In Dagestan erce battles with Islamist groups took place in 1999. Since then small-scale clashes and terrorist attacks have been routine in the republic. In Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, over 130 people were killed in street battles with Muslim rebels (reportedly aliated with the jamaat Yarmuk) in October 2005. In addition, and in contrast to the situation in relatively wealthy Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, these conicts take place amid socioeconomic hardships that can only worsen inter-group tensions. Rising ethnic tensions have driven many ethnic Russians, most of whom are Orthodox by tradition, away from the Caucasus (census data suggest that the population of Dagestan is now no more than 6 per cent Russian). In this atmosphere of conicts, hardships and tensions mutual religious intolerance appears a natural outcome.

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Overall, there seems to be no single explanation for regional variation in tolerance. The ethno-religious makeup, economic conditions, radical Islam and reactions to it, and a history of violence and instability along with the quality of policies meant to deal with them all appear important. The relative importance of each factor varies by region. At the same time, we show below that some factors are universal. What makes Orthodox and Muslims Intolerant of Each Other? We have seen above that, with the remarkable exceptions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, OrthodoxMuslim intolerance is widespread in Russia. A crucial question of this study is if and to what extent this widespread mutual intolerance is a product of adherence to Orthodox and Muslim beliefs and practices. Do religious commitment and devotion to Orthodoxy and Islam make their adherents more intolerant of each other? If so, we may be dealing with tensions between two religiously dened civilisations, which would conrm Huntingtons (1996) grim outlook for the future of stability along ChristianMuslim borders. Alternatively, if the main causes of intolerance are not religious in nature, if they rather reect the circumstances in which Orthodoxy and Islam have been practised, then there may be policies to remedy such circumstances. Thus the question of the religious roots of ChristianMuslim intolerance is of crucial importance. Religious determinants of interfaith intolerance are even less researched than the intolerance itself. However, there has been a line of studies of the inuence of religion on political intolerance (of such groups as atheists, communists, homosexuals and others). Focusing primarily on the USA, some of these studies show considerable eects of attendance, personal piety and traditional denominational aliations on political tolerance (see, for example, Stouer, 1955; Fislinger, 1976; Nunn et al., 1978). However, more complex analyses suggest that these inuences may be mediated by such factors as theocratic political orientations, illiberal views and other factors extrinsic to religious beliefs and practices proper (Smidt and Penning, 1982; McFarland, 1989; Ellison and Musick, 1993; Jelen and Wilcox, 1990; Karpov, 1999, 2002). As shown below, our analyses of OrthodoxMuslim intolerance in Russia yield similar patterns. Specically, we looked at how OrthodoxMuslim intolerance is related to: (1) core beliefs of ones faith and main religious practices (church or mosque attendance, frequency of prayer, and frequency of reading the Bible or the Quran); (2) near-religious ideology, which is not the core beliefs of the religions, but rather peoples beliefs about their and other religions: for instance, these may include peoples beliefs about various religions as good or bad, or ethnically native or alien, and about the treatment they deserve in society; and (3) non-religious ideology: peoples secular beliefs and sentiments: in our study, these include ethnic attitudes, pro-democracy and pro-western orientations, and willingness to put up with dissidents (usually dened as political tolerance). The inuence of these three groups of factors on intolerance is summarised below. Pertinent statistical details may be found in Table 2 in the Appendix. Core religious beliefs and practices. To measure the former, we relied upon commonly used survey indicators of monotheistic beliefs (for example, in God, the devil, life after death, heaven and hell), and, for the Orthodox, of specic Christian beliefs (for example, in Jesus Christ and his resurrection). These indicators were aggregated into cumulative indices of religious belief. Religious practices were measured in terms of how often Orthodox and Muslims attended churches or mosques, prayed and read the Bible or the Quran.

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Table 2 shows partial correlations of religious beliefs and practices with Orthodox Muslim tolerance, controlling for the eects of the respondents age and education and the size of the cities where interviews were collected. Since younger, better educated people living in larger cities in our analyses (and in previous research) are usually more tolerant than others, it was important to separate the eects of religiosity from these background factors. Negative correlations mean that predictors decrease tolerance. All coecients reported below are statistically signicant. First, we found that religious beliefs per se do not make Russians more intolerant. On the contrary, among the Orthodox, those who more fully share monotheistic and Christian beliefs tend to be slightly more tolerant of Muslims than those who do not (partial correlations are 0.09 and 0.08 respectively). Next, religious practices are dierently associated with tolerance among the two groups. As Table 2 shows, among Muslims, those who more often go to the mosque, pray and read the Quran appear less tolerant towards the Orthodox (correlations range from 70.18 to 70.11). Among the Orthodox, only church attendance is negatively and slightly associated with tolerance towards Muslims (70.07). In other words, praying and reading the Bible more often do not make the Orthodox more intolerant, while mosque attendance, praying and reading the Quran more often make Muslims somewhat more intolerant of the Orthodox. Although these eects are statistically signicant, they are small in magnitude. Near-religious ideology. While core religious beliefs do not make Orthodox and Muslims more intolerant of each other, their beliefs about religions do. In particular, a negative view of Islam (as militant, reactionary, inhumane, anti-democratic and so on) makes Orthodox strongly intolerant of Muslims (0.41). Similarly, a negative view of Orthodoxy predisposes Muslims for intolerance (0.23). As data show, negativism towards Islam more strongly predicts intolerance of Muslims than negativism to Orthodoxy predicts intolerance of the Orthodox. An important predictor of tolerance is the acceptance of the view that all religions should have equal rights in Russia: those who do not share it are more intolerant. Among the Orthodox, opposition to equal rights for religions predicts intolerance more strongly (0.30 compared to 0.12). Another predictor of intolerance is a phenomenon we dene as ethnodoxy, that is, a belief system that rigidly links peoples ethnic identity to their dominant religion and that views other faiths as alien. This belief system creates an explosive fusion of religious and ethnic identity and leads to intolerance. We designed a questionnaire that measured peoples adherence to such ethno-religious beliefs. The survey data show that such beliefs are very common in Russia. For instance, 85 per cent of ethnic Russians believe that they are Orthodox in their heart even if they were not baptised and do not go to church. Nearly half believe that only ethnic Russians can be true Orthodox, and more than one third see converts to non-Orthodox faiths as no longer truly Russian. As partial correlations in Table 2 show, this ideology noticeably decreases tolerance towards Muslims (70.20). Although religious ethnodoxy is also common among Muslims (85 per cent of Tatars, Bashkirs, Avars and other historically Islamic ethnics say they are Muslims in their heart regardless of actual religiosity), it is signicantly but weakly (0.08) associated with their intolerance towards the Orthodox. Non-religious ideology. We found that religious intolerance is also linked to beliefs and attitudes that have nothing to do with religion (see Table 2). Particularly important is the link between religious intolerance and ethnic prejudice. Those

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Russian Orthodox who have negative attitudes to ethnic non-Russians from the Caucasus and Asia are markedly less tolerant of Muslims (70.28). Similarly, prejudice against ethnic Russians makes Muslims markedly less tolerant of the Orthodox (70.26). Pro-democratic and pro-western views make both Muslims and Orthodox more tolerant of each other. Interfaith tolerance is also linked to support for civil liberties for political and social out-groups (for example, fascists, atheists and homosexuals). Those Muslims or Orthodox who are more willing to put up with such groups are also more tolerant of each other. The link between political and religious tolerance is stronger among Muslims than among the Orthodox (0.30 compared with 0.12). Conclusion Although most Russians calling themselves Orthodox Christians or Muslims do not actively practise or fully accept the tenets of their faiths, religious intolerance among them is widespread and strong. A majority of self-identied Orthodox would curtail Muslims basic religious freedoms. In the regions where Muslims are in an absolute minority and where Orthodox Russians have hardly any immediate contact with Islam, the intolerance towards Muslims is stronger. Strikingly, in Moscow and St Petersburg, Russias two wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities with highly educated populations, intolerance towards Muslims is stronger than the countrys average. Russias Muslim minority appears on average more willing to grant religious liberties to the Orthodox majority. Yet, in strategically important areas, such as the North Caucasus, Muslims intolerance of Christian minorities is remarkably strong. In this atmosphere, reports about religious hate crime and violations of religious freedom in Russia reect more than isolated incidents. Acts of hate and intolerance seem to have deep roots in popular hostility to religious freedom. The problem of ChristianMuslim intolerance in Russia is not conned to actions of extremists and illiberal ocials. It is a societal problem that reects the ordinary Russians unwillingness to put up with minorities. OrthodoxMuslim intolerance is not an isolated interfaith issue in Russia. As we have written elsewhere, both groups unwillingness to put up with the Jews and western churches is much stronger than their mutual intolerance (Karpov and Lisovskaya, 2007a). Thus OrthodoxMuslim intolerance is only a part of a much broader culture of religious intolerance that has taken root in Russia in just 15 years since the collapse of ocial Soviet atheism. Importantly, this widespread culture of religious intolerance is, at most, weakly associated with core beliefs and practices of Orthodoxy and Islam. Consistency of religious belief is positively, and church attendance negatively but weakly, correlated with tolerance among the Orthodox. Among Muslims, active engagement in religious practices is more noticeably yet weakly correlated with intolerance. Overall, the culture of religious intolerance is shaped not so much by core religious beliefs as by ideological beliefs about religions. Such are prejudices against Islam among the Orthodox, and against Orthodoxy among Muslims. Such are also beliefs that ethnic Russians are Orthodox by birth or denition, just as Tatars and Chechens are Muslims, and that any other religion is alien and harmful to these peoples. Conating religious and ethnic animosities, this popular ideology of religious ethnocentrism breeds intolerance and poses a threat to the unity and stability of the multiethnic and multireligious Russia. Finally, opposition to the idea of equality of all faiths under the law correlates with intolerance. Let us note that this popular

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sentiment is congruent with Russias ocial ideology that has treated some religions as more equal than others since the enactment of the 1997 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations. The climate of intolerance is further worsened by non-religious ideological inuences. Racial prejudice against the ethnicities of the Caucasus and Asia (pejoratively referred to in Russian street slang as chernyye, meaning blacks) increases intolerance towards Muslims, just as prejudice against ethnic Russians increases intolerance towards the Orthodox. Not surprisingly, people who hold antidemocratic and antiwestern views and oppose granting liberties to dissidents are also more intolerant of their neighbours religion. What do our data on the relative importance of religious, near-religious and nonreligious factors of intolerance suggest about the inuence of religiosity on intolerance? In our view, these ndings mean that inquiries into religiosityintolerance links should not be limited to core religious beliefs and practices. While the phenomena we called near-religious may be viewed as alien to Orthodox and Muslim religiosity normatively dened, they may be an integral part of Orthodoxy and Islam as they are interpreted and practiced by ordinary Russians in their everyday lives. For instance, although the ethnoreligionist belief about presumed innate Orthodoxy of an ethnic Russian may normatively be considered heretical (Nikita Struve once likened ethnodoxy (etnoslaviye) to the heresy of phyletism: Struve, [1982] 2000, p. 94), for most Russians it seems to be an important part of their mundane interpretation of what Orthodoxy means. Similarly, the beliefs we analytically dened as non-religious may be rmly established as part of popular religiosity. For instance, ordinary Orthodox and Muslims may think that democracy and acceptance of ethnic diversity and political dissent are alien to their religions. For such people, ethnic, political, and religious intolerance will be natural and logical consequences of their religiosity. Remarkably, both ethnocentric and antidemocratic views are congruent with public statements by many of Russias past and present religious leaders. To summarise, our ndings suggest that religiosity normatively understood (as adherence to core beliefs and practices of Orthodoxy and Islam) has limited inuence on intolerance. However, popular religiosity (interpretations of Orthodoxy and Islam by ordinary Russians in their everyday life) may predispose people to intolerance more strongly than their core beliefs and practices. This means both good and bad news for the prospects for reduction of mutual intolerance. The good news is that greater commitment to the fundamentals of Orthodoxy and Islam normatively understood is unlikely to make Russians more intolerant. Conversely, achieving greater tolerance does not require compromises on the fundamental tenets of both faiths (contrary to what zealots on both sides often say). However, the bad news is that reducing intolerance may be impossible without serious changes in popular interpretations of Orthodoxy and Islam that have absorbed ethnocentric, prejudicial and illiberal beliefs. Ridding mass religious cultures of such orientations may take generations and would require consistent systematic eort on the part of religious leaders and educators. However, so far little seems to be done in this direction and much in the opposite. Yet our study also shows that even in this societal atmosphere a much greater mutual tolerance among Russias Orthodox and Muslims can be achieved and does exist in some places. Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where nearly equal populations of Muslims and Christians live side by side, and where peace among them is supported by the local authorities resistance to separatism and encouragement of interfaith contacts, show tolerance levels markedly higher than elsewhere in the country. This

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sharply contrasts with the situation in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria, republics of the war-torn North Caucasus, where ethno-religious tensions are worsened by economic hardship, the emergence of radical Islam and failed attempts to eradicate it through violence and suppression of religious freedom. Given the spread of OrthodoxMuslim intolerance and its roots in a more general popular hostility to religious freedom and minority rights, this problem is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. If anything, it is likely to worsen amid Russias current undemocratic tendencies, which cannot but fuel popular anti-libertarian sentiment. In turn, escalating intolerance may trigger conicts with ramications for Eurasian and global security (just as the conict in Chechnya has already done). In this context, trends in OrthodoxMuslim intolerance in Russia need regular sociological monitoring, and we see our study as a rst step towards this end.

Notes
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1 This research was supported by funds provided by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER) under authority of a Title VIII grant from the US Department of State. Neither NCEEER nor the US government is responsible for the views expressed in this paper. 2 A jamaat is a community of Muslims. Jamaats may be formed territorially, ethnically or on the basis of a certain interpretation of Islam, and are sometimes headed by imams. In Dagestan, for instance, jamaats appeared in the thirteenth century headed by councils of elders representing various clans. Other jamaats recently emerged as religio-political formations and some of them have embraced Islamist and Wahhabi ideas (see Yemelianova, 2003).

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Appendix

Table 1. OrthodoxMuslim tolerance by region Teach their faith in state schools Preach on television 34 74 62 62 62 62 19 24 47 34 25 27 33 44 35 36 13 41 25 27 34 41

Percentages of 57 94 94 88 88 85 67 61 74 64 32 26 44 35 33 37 52 48 52 47 67 69 78 75 80 66 64 56 87 76 86 75 30 72 44 80 44 80

Build a mosque/ church Publicly preach

Publish religious materials

Open religious schools

Do charitable work 63 87 95 92 79 78 76 63 70 60

Fundraise 48 80 81 78 74 71 48 52 70 68

Russia: Orthodox* allowing Muslims to Muslims** allowing Orthodox to

Tatarstan: Orthodox allowing Muslims to Muslims allowing Orthodox to

Bashkortostan: Orthodox allowing Muslims to Muslims allowing Orthodox to

Dagestan: Orthodox allowing Muslims to Muslims allowing Orthodox to

Kabardino-Balkaria: Orthodox allowing Muslims to Muslims allowing Orthodox to

Religious Intolerance in Russia

*Orthodox from the sample of the whole of Russia (N 1331). **Muslims from non-Muslim regions of Russia only (N 48).

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Table 2. Determinants of OrthodoxMuslim tolerance (partial correlations, controlling for the inuence of age, education and city size) Tolerance among Orthodox towards Muslims 0.09** 0.08** 70.07* Tolerance among Muslims towards Orthodox N/A 70.18*** 70.16*** 70.11**

Determinants Core religious beliefs and practices: Monotheistic beliefs Christian beliefs Church/mosque attendance Prayer frequency Frequency of reading Bible/Quran Near-religious ideology (beliefs about and attitudes to ones own and other religions): Belief that all religions should have equal rights Negative views of Islam/Orthodoxy Religious ethnodoxy
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0.30*** 70.41*** 70.20*** 0.13** 0.12*** 70.28***

0.12** 70.23*** 70.08* 0.11** 0.30*** 70.26***

Non-religious ideology (secular beliefs and attitudes): Pro-democratic and pro-western views Political tolerance Prejudice against ethnic non-Russians/Russians

No signicant association; *p 5 0.05; **p 5 0.001; ***p 5 0.0001, two-tailed test.

Religious Intolerance in Russia

Religious Intolerance Questionnaire The questions are translated from the original Russian Questions to Orthodox Christians In Russia, there are followers of various religions, including Muslims (the followers of Islam): 1. Suppose Muslims wanted to build a new mosque in our town. Do you think they should be allowed to do so or prohibited from doing so? 2. And now suppose Muslims started publicly preaching Islam in our town. Should they be allowed to do so or prohibited from doing so? 3. What if Muslims wanted to publish and distribute Islamic newspapers and magazines in our town? 4. And if Muslims wanted to open an Islamic school in our town? 5. Now suppose Muslims wanted to teach the foundations of Islam in state schools in our town. Should this be allowed or prohibited to them? 6. And if Muslims wanted to preach their religious views on television? 7. If Muslims wanted to engage in charitable work in our town? 8. And if Muslims in our town started collecting money and donations for their religious needs, should they be allowed to do so or prohibited from doing so? Questions to Muslims

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I will read to you some statements about the Orthodox. Would you say that the Orthodox should be allowed to do the following or prohibited from doing so: 1. Suppose Orthodox wanted to build a new church in our town. Do you think they should be allowed to do so or prohibited from doing so? 2. And now suppose Orthodox started publicly preaching their faith in our town. Should they be allowed to do so or prohibited from doing so? 3. What if Orthodox wanted to publish and distribute their religious newspapers and magazines in our town? 4. And if Orthodox wanted to open an Orthodox school in our town? 5. Now suppose Orthodox wanted to teach the foundations of the Orthodox faith in state schools in our town. Should this be allowed or prohibited to them? 6. And if Orthodox wanted to preach their religious views on television? 7. If Orthodox wanted to engage in charitable work in our town? 8. And if Orthodox in our town started collecting money and donations for their religious needs, should they be allowed to do so or prohibited from doing so?