The Slavic-Orthodox Community in Azerbaijan: The Identity and Social Position of a Once-Dominant Minority

Abstract

Based on recent empirical findings and field observations, this article examines the Slavic-Orthodox community in Azerbaijan. Nowadays numbering about one and a half percent of the population, the main threat to its continuity is not persecution nor pressure to assimilate, but an ageing ethnic-demographic base which is not going to be kept up to level by either natural replacement or new adherents. Orthodox Christianity will nonetheless keep a presence in the country, yet its base of adherents will unavoidably become more heterogeneous.