The conventional Chuvash faith was a variety of zoroastrism and represented a complex system of religious beliefs. There were many ancient elements connected with reverence of nature forces, taken for different deities, it was characterised by dualism - kind gods and deities at the head of the highest Syuldi-Tora were confronted by malicious deities and spirits at the head of the devil Shuitan. The Christian clergy strictly pursued the followers of the conventional religion. Still christened Chuvashes kept secretly conducting prayers and other rites. To the present time in Chuvash Republic there are greatly modified relics of certain cults and some elements of ancient ritualism. Only in some Chuvash diasporas non-christened Chuvashes adhere to canons of their ancient religion. Part of intelligentsia aims to revive traditional religious beliefs. One association of ethnic religious beliefs of Chuvashes has been registered in Chuvashia. Penetration of Islam took place in the Bulgar period (the 10th – 12th centuries), went on in the epoch of Golden Horde and Kazan khanate (the 14th –16th centuries). During this period a part of the Chuvash population accepted Islam. Now it is basically widespread in places of compact living of Tatars, in the southeast of Chuvashia. During the Soviet years, 36 mosques out of 38 were closed. As of today, 15 Moslem parishes have been registered. The theological administration of Moslems of Chuvash Republic was formed in 1994 in the village of Shigirdany, Batyrevskii district. Orthodox Christianity began penetrating to the territory of modern Chuvashia, when peoples of the Middle Volga region joined Russia in the middle of the 16th century. But its dissemination among indigenous people went very slowly, they remained the adherents of the conventional religions. From the middle of the 18th century forced Christianisation of nationalities of Povolzhye began, but even after that, down to the 1970s of the 19th century, Chuvashes mostly remained paganists. Only when priests speaking the Chuvash language were trained, when sermons were held in the Chuvash language, when Chuvash religious literature appeared, most part of the local population yielded to Christianity. Before the revolution there were seven monasteries, 299 orthodox temples on the territory of Chuvashia. After 1917 all the monasteries and 264 churches were closed. Now, 187 orthodox parishes, six cloisters, including two monasteries (Cheboxary, Alatyr) and four convents (Cheboxary, Alatyr, Tsivilsk, and Komsomolskii district) have been registered in justice authorities. Training of priests is conducted in Cheboxary diocese theological school. In 1996 and 2001, the Patriarch of Moscow and the entire Rus Alexiy II visited Chuvashia. His visits were accompanied by stone-laying ceremony of large church facilities in the capital. He consecrated the so-called Temple road-dam, separating Cheboxary bay from the Volga-bed), constructed in 1996, located in the centre of the town - leading to the monastery complex and to the cathedral (the notorious “vladimirka” road along which exiles and convicts were led to Siberia). The major factor, which favoured preservation and development of the ethnos in Christianisation, was that Chuvashes, while being christened were not forced to renounce their nationality. And today in the European part of Russia Chuvashes are the only Turkic people professing orthodoxy. It must be noted that the Chuvash language became the second language after Russian, into which the Bible was translated, and Chuvashes are the first people in Russia to conduct public worship in the native language.