In this paper the author considers the proportion between Orthodox city people, who did or did not take part in sacraments of confession and communion in Moscow parish churches at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The study is based upon a sample of data about the numbers of parishioners, which was collected from confession and clerical lists stored in the Central State Archive of Moscow. Significant changes over the period between 1897 and 1913 were discovered: the share of those recorded in confession lists decreased from 30% to 15%.