This article attempts to study the evolution of state-confessional politics in modern Russia based on an analysis of the reform of federal legislation, starting from the moment the Russian Constitution was adopted in 1993. The study is based on the key normative legal acts in the fi eld of freedom of conscience, which played a fundamental role in the development of the state’s confessional policy. Having freed itself from atheistic ideology, post-Soviet Russia for several decades has been forming new relations with religious associations, consistently fi lling them with normative and legal content. Careful reading of legal acts made it possible to gradually track the transformation of state-confessional policy and to understand the nature of the current model of relations with religious associations, the leitmotif of which is the popularization of moral and ethical values, rapprochement with traditional confessions and ensuring religious security.