All Russians, with the exception of a number of White Russians who belong to the United Greek Church (see Roman Catholic Church), profess the Orthodox Greek faith or belong to one or other of the numberless dissident sects.
It is this political rather than religious spirit which also underlies the repressive attitude of the government, and of the Orthodox Church as the organ of the government, towards the various dissident sects (Raskolniki, from raskol, schism), which for more than two centuries past have played an important part in the popular life of Russia, and, since the political developments of the end of the 19th and early years of the zoth century, have tended to do so more and more.
Moreover, these dissident patterns merge into a remarkably harmonious, almost normal, average curve.