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

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 non-liturgical 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.