Svetlana V. Ryzhova

The paper analyzes issues related to the conceptualization of the sociological notion of religious identity, demonstrates the need to analyze motives for religious identity and subjective meaning of religiosity. The author thinks that a serious challenge to the sociological study of religion is a question of religious selfidentification. What sociological indicators define religiosity? Is it enough for selfidentification or researcher must take into account parameters of religious practice? Religious identity includes analysis at the personal, group, social levels through the prism of interactions of religious consciousness and society, the analysis of the degree of religiosity and its quantitative characteristics. Psychological approach allows us to consider motives of religious identity. A trend in the formation of religious identity focuses mostly on the example of Orthodoxy; the author proposes a typology of the religious (Orthodox) identity.