I think Chechnya is about half and half..
( Orthodox Russian Catholic and Muslim.. )
Do you mean the Catholics may be participating in these terrorist acts?
I believe there are a number of ethnic Slavs in Chechnya who may represent the Christian minority to which you refer. But I believe the ethnic Chechnyans are Muslims.
According to a newspaper account I read today, an interim Chechnyan government was allowed to exist briefly by Putin, but the leader instituted Islamic Law and then attempted to export it to Dagestan.Make no mistake about this - its Islamic terrorism all over again. Like the Palestinian situation, it may be clouded over with some elements of local nationalism, but its the same story - militant Islam on the march again.
Chechnya's population may be mixed but it is solely the Islamofascists who are doing these things.
But the "separatists" are Muslims. The Orthodox living in Chechenya would prefer being part of Holy Russia to living under sharia.
We are Eastern Orthodox Christians not Orthodox Catholics, sorry but not the same or nearly. Catholics leave Orthodox Church and totally split with no connection to us at all.
"The majority religion in North Ossetia is Russian Orthodox Christian, and several of its neighbors are predominantly Muslim. The region is awash in political, religious and ethnic hatred. Russian troops had to step in to quell a 1992 conflict between North Ossetians and largely-Muslim Ingush, longtime ethnic rivals."