Today the proportion of Muslims in Russia must be at least 9%. However, sociological polls have shown a much smaller number, namely, from 4% to 6%, that is, from 6 to 9 million Russians, for the last decade. This paradox can be accounted for only by the fact that a considerable part of ethnic Muslims do not profess Islam’, Silantyev said in an interview to the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily published on Friday.

The expert also refuted the reports that Orthodox Russians were converting to Islam by dozens of thousands nowadays. He says the leaders of newly-converted Muslims themselves say that

‘people who have changed their faith are not more than 3 thousands throughout Russia. Most of the new converts are women who changed their faith when they married Muslims.’

‘While those among them who have embraced Islam for ideological reasons are no more that 800 people in Russia today’, Silantyev reported.

According to the Islamic researcher, up to 2 million ethnic Muslims have embraced Christianity during the last 20 years in Russia.

‘It is a different matter that the Russian Orthodox Church does not consider it wise to tease the Muslims with this statistics and to encourage the new converts to enter into polemics with their former fellow-believers’, Silantyev noted.