The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (Russian: Содружество Независимых Государств, Sodružestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv, initialism: СНГ, SNG) is a regional intergovernmental organization of nine (originally ten) members, plus two founding non-member, post-Soviet republics in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of 20,368,759 km² (8,097,484 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 239,796,010.
Russia has been urging that the Russian language receive official status in all of the CIS member states. So far Russian is an official language in only four of these states: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
In 2012 the research organization Sreda, in cooperation with the 2010 census and the Ministry of Justice, published the Arena Atlas, a detailed enumeration of religious populations and nationalities in Russia, based on a large-sample country-wide survey. The results showed that 46.8% of Russians declared themselves Christians—including 41% Russian Orthodox, 1.5% simply Orthodox or members of non-Russian Orthodox churches, 4.1% unaffiliated Christians, and less than 1% for both Old Believers, Catholics, and Protestants—while 25% were spiritual but not religious, 13% were atheists, 6.5% were Muslims, 1.2% were followers of "traditional religions honoring gods and ancestors" (including Rodnovery, Tengrism and other ethnic religions), and 0.5% were Buddhists, 0.1% were religious Jews and 0.1% were Hindus.
Christianity in Russia is the most widely professed religion in the country, with nearly 71% of the population identifying as Orthodox Christian according to World Atlas (The Muslim population stands at 10%, and the rest - about 15% - is unaffiliated). The largest tradition is the Russian Orthodox Church. According to official sources, there are 68 eparchies of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are from 500,000 to one million Old Believers, who represent an older form of Russian Orthodox Christianity, and who separated from the Orthodox Church in the 17th century as a protest against Patriarch Nikon's church reforms.
Baptists, Evangelical Christians, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Adventists, Methodists, Quakers and many other Protestant denominations are present in Russia, and some observers believe Russia will experience a Protestant revival in the future. There is particular growth among the Korean and German minorities. Baptists have been historically the largest Protestant group in Russia.
Bibliography:
Wikipedia, Commonwealth of Independent States, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Independent_States. Retrieved April 10, 2020
Wikipedia, Russia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia. Retrieved April 10, 2020
Overcome the barriers in every field of mission