CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Page 161

KRISTINE MARGARYAN
While the above presented data illustrates the increase of restrictions
and imprisonments for expressing religious belief, it does not show the
extent to which the society is referring to religion. For that, the data is
gathered from Caucasus Barometer 77 of the years from 2009 to 2013,
which identifi es the level of religiosity of the Azerbaijan’s society. To
measure the religiosity fi ve variables – the importance of religion life in
a daily life, importance of following traditions, attendance of religious
services, the extent to which the respondents perceive themselves as reli-
gious people and trust towards religious institutions – have been chosen.
Figure 2. The level of religiosity of the society
90
66
70
60
50
47
71
82
81 80
79
80
73
71
38
40
57
52
46 49
45 43
44
50
56 57 54
30
20
10
0
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Importance of religion in a daily life
Figure 2. reveals that the religion among the society of Azerbaijan
has become an important element in their life, as the number of respon-
dents, who perceives the religion as an important element of their daily
life has increased from 2010 (71%) to 2013 (82%). This fact has been
accompanied by the increase of the level of attendance of religious ser-
vices whether it is more than once a month or only on religious holidays,
showing the rise from 47% as of 2009 to 56% as of 2013. The same ten-
dency concerns the importance of following the traditions. This can be
considered another proof of increased level of religiosity of Azerbaijan’s
society. The tendency of trust towards religious institutions is also an in-
teresting phenomenon. The highest rate of trust towards religious insti-
tutions was in 2009 with 66%. Probably this number was dictated by the
adoption of new 2009 amendments of the “Law on Freedom of Religious
Belief”. While the number dropped in 2010 (49%), there is still a ten-
dency of increase as of 2013. Finally, the same tendency is observed re-
garding the society’s perception of being religious. The number of those
77
Caucasus Research Resource Centers, Caucasus Barometer, http://caucasusbarometer.org/en/
(accessed October 7, 2018).
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