The article focuses the influence of ethno-religious identity on the political process, political institutions, and choice of the model of political development of contemporary modernizing Russia. To find interdependence between religious choice and the choice of the way of development is the main purpose of it. To realize, how religious identity and values of citizens are connected with their political views, positions and activities is one of the tasks under consideration. Problems of religious dimension of political development, and - development as a religious and political value, the role of religious institutions, types of religious culture and religious ideas, - are being examined within the framework of Modern/Postmodern society, classical and postclassical theories of development. Relations between church, national state, civil society in late modern Russia are highlighted with special attention to the role of the Church, its parishes, activists and thinkers in a democracy process, decentralization, political activism and public participation. Additionally the questions of the model of church-state relations in Russia are raised; the concept of civil religion of R.N. Bellah is examined. It is for the first time, when comparative study of the results of the pools on religious identity of citizens of Russia, other Orthodox and also post-Soviet countries of American PEW Institute and the analogous pools of R.F. Inglehart team is made. The results of Russian pools are considered here too. To summarize, there are important conceptual conclusions about: the religious identity as recourse and a criteria of national development in a modern globalizing world, the political potential of religious politics and policies, of church political activism, opportunities of its institutes to confront or weaken totalitarian tendencies for the secure development of Russia in the 21st century.