New Poll of Russians On Church-State Issues

With Russian presidential elections scheduled for March, Interfax yesterday reported on a new nation-wide poll in Russia of public opinion on church-state issues. The poll was conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. It found that 55% of Russians believe Russia’s next president should prefer the Russian Orthodox Church to other religious organizations, while 34% think he should treat all religions equally and observe the principle of separation of church and state. Only 10% think that the next president needs to be personally religious.