Church is eager to register its communities when they are still at the embryonal stage, and many of them are actually inactive; the Old Believers traditionally do not consider registration as essential, and some branches reject it in principle; and Protestant churches have the largest number of unregistered congregations, probably around ten thousand, most of them extremely small groups, and while many denominations discourage registration, they often also face a negative disposition from secular authorities. Demographics In the August of 2012 the first large-scale survey and mapping of religions in Russia based on self-identification was published in the Sreda Arena Atlas, an extension of the 2010 Census, with data on seventy-nine out of eighty-three of the federal subjects of Russia. On a rounded total population of 142,800,000 the survey found that 66,840,000 persons, or 47.4% of the total population, were Christians. Among them, 58,800,000 or 41.1% of the population were believers in the Russian Orthodox Church, 5,900,000 or 4.1% were Christians without any denomination, 2,100,000 or 1.5% were believers in Orthodox Christianity without belonging to any church or (a smaller minority) belonging to non-Russian Orthodox churches (including Armenian and Georgian), 400,000 or 0.2% were Orthodox Old Believers, 300,000 or 0.2% were Protestants, and 140,000 (less than 0.1%) were Catholics. Among the non-Christians, 9,400,000 or 6.5% of the population were Muslims (including Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, and a majority of unaffiliated Muslims), 1,700,000 or 1.2% were pagans (including Rodnovery, Assianism, and other religions) or Tengrists (Turco-Mongol Shamanic religions and new religions), 700,000 or 0.5% were Buddhists (mostly of the Tibetan schools), 140,000 or 0.1% were Hindus (including Krishnaites), and 140,000 were religious Jews. Among the not religious population, 36,000,000 people or 25% declared to "believe in God (or in a higher power)" but to "not profess any particular religion", 18,600,000 or 13% were atheists, and 7,900,000 or 5.5% did not state any religious, spiritual or atheist belief. Chronological statistics Religions by federal district Religions by federal subject All the data, approximated, are from the Arena Atlas 2012. Religions by ethnic group Other surveys In 2022, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) found that 68% of Russians identified Orthodox Christians, 1% were Protestants, 6% were Muslims, 4% belonged to other religions, 20% had no religion in particular and 1% were unsure about their belief. The survey also found that only 38% of those under the age of 25 declared themselves to