Place of faith or service center? How Moscow’s Orthodox Christians choose a church

Место веры или центр услуг? Как московские православные выбирают храм

Kuksin, Yaroslav (Куксин, Ярослав) ()
Additional contact information
Kuksin, Yaroslav (Куксин, Ярослав): Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

Urban Folklore and Anthropology, 2024, vol. 6, issue 3, 30-55

Abstract: This article examines the problem of church selection among Moscow residents, using Orthodox churches as an example. By highlighting the factors that make churches significant for parishioners and analyzing the various types of services offered by churches, the author considers the church in three dimensions - social, environmental, and informational. Through the course of the research, the author answers the question of why some muscovites are willing to prefer a distant church over one within walking distance. The article is based on empirical data collected by the author during field research in seven Moscow churches in 2022–2023. The most significant factors in choosing a church are those which derived from social practices - the personality of a priest, the atmosphere in the church, and the parish community. The geographical location of the church and the quality of the surrounding environment determine differences in the localization of parish communities. By analyzing the variety of nonliturgical services provided by churches, the author reveals a subtle process, unnoticed by most city residents, of redrawing the boundaries between the religious and the secular, and calls for studying churches as indicators of these changes.

Keywords: religion; factors of church selection; parish communities; center; periphery; Russian Orthodox Church; Moscow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repec.ranepa.ru/rnp/urbfan/uf2408.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rnp:urbfan:uf2408

Access Statistics for this article

Urban Folklore and Anthropology is currently edited by Sergey Neklyudov

More articles in Urban Folklore and Anthropology from Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by RANEPA maintainer ().