Confessional identity and modern religious practices of the Chuvash

The paper discusses the conformity of the declared confessional identity of the Orthodox and unbaptized Chuvash with actual religious practices common for both groups. The paper reveals features of ritual practices, shows their role in the formation of the confessional identity of the group and its members. In accordance with the tasks, specific ritual practices that exist in various confessional environments are analyzed, the state of religiosity of individual local groups of the Orthodox and unbaptized Chuvash is characterized. The research is based on the author’s field materials collected in rural settlements of the Samara Region, the Republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan and the Chuvash Republic in 2020–2021. The results of the study showed that the religious practices of both groups do not fully correspond to the declared religious identity. In the practices of the Orthodox Chuvash, a significant layer of views, prescriptions and behavioral practices dating back to the traditional religion is preserved, while the unbaptized Chuvash have Christian elements that have penetrated in the course of interaction with the Orthodox environment, which makes it possible to determine the religiosity of these groups, in some cases, as syncretism, in others as dual faith. Differences in confessional identity with current religious practices are due to the partial blurring of confessional «borders» as a result of religious conversion, transformation of ritual practices, and perception by communities of both religious systems as a common ethno-cultural heritage.