Germany Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Religion === {{Main|Religion in Germany}} {{See also|Catholic Church in Germany|Protestant Church in Germany|Irreligion in Germany|Islam in Germany|Judaism in Germany}} [[File:500px photo (70560973).jpeg|thumb|[[Cologne Cathedral]], a [[UNESCO World Heritage Site]]]] According to the 2011 census, Christianity was the largest religion in Germany, with 66.8% of respondents identifying as Christian, of which 3.8% were not church members.<ref name="Egeler">{{Cite web |url=https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseService/Presse/Pressekonferenzen/2013/Zensus2011/Statement_Egeler_zensus_PDF.pdf?__blob=publicationFile |title=Pressekonferenz "Zensus 2011 – Fakten zur Bevölkerung in Deutschland" am 31. Mai 2013 in Berlin |publisher=[[Federal Statistical Office of Germany]] |pages=9–11 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010094954/https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseService/Presse/Pressekonferenzen/2013/Zensus2011/Statement_Egeler_zensus_PDF.pdf?__blob=publicationFile |archivedate=10 October 2017}}</ref> 31.7% declared themselves as [[Protestantism in Germany|Protestants]], including members of the [[Protestant Church in Germany]] (which encompasses [[Lutheran]], [[Reformed tradition|Reformed]], and administrative or confessional [[United and uniting churches|unions of both traditions]]) and the [[free churches]] ({{lang|de|Evangelische Freikirchen}}); 31.2% declared themselves as [[Roman Catholicism in Germany|Roman Catholics]], and [[Eastern Orthodox|Orthodox]] believers constituted 1.3%. According to data from 2016, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church claimed 28.5% and 27.5%, respectively, of the population.<ref name="Eck16">{{cite web|url=http://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/presse_2017/2017-121a-Flyer-Eckdaten-Kirchenstatistik-2016.pdf |title=Official membership statistics of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany 2016|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010074912/http://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/presse_2017/2017-121a-Flyer-Eckdaten-Kirchenstatistik-2016.pdf |archivedate=10 October 2017 |accessdate= 20 June 2017|publisher=Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz}}</ref><ref name="EKD2017">{{cite web|url= http://archiv.ekd.de/download/broschuere_2017_internet.pdf|title= Official membership statistics of the Evangelical Church in Germany 2016|accessdate= 5 June 2017|publisher= Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland|archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20171010075258/http://archiv.ekd.de/download/broschuere_2017_internet.pdf|archivedate= 10 October 2017|url-status= live}}</ref> [[Islam in Germany|Islam]] is the second-largest religion in the country.<ref name="Zensus 2011">{{Cite web |url=https://ergebnisse.zensus2011.de/#StaticContent:00,BEG_4_2_6,m,table |title=Bevölkerung im regionalen Vergleich nach Religion (ausführlich) -in %- |date=9 May 2011 |website=Zensus 2011 |publisher=[[Federal Statistical Office of Germany]] |page=Zensus 2011 – Page 6 |language=German |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130621101339/https://ergebnisse.zensus2011.de/#StaticContent:00,BEG_4_2_6,m,table |archivedate=21 June 2013 }}</ref> In the 2011 census, 1.9% of respondents (1.52 million people) gave their religion as Islam, but this figure is deemed unreliable because a disproportionate number of adherents of this faith (and other religions, such as Judaism) are likely to have made use of their right not to answer the question.<ref>{{Cite press release |title=Zensus 2011 – Fakten zur Bevölkerung in Deutschland" am 31. Mai 2013 in Berlin |publisher=[[Federal Statistical Office of Germany]] |url=https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseService/Presse/Pressekonferenzen/2013/Zensus2011/Statement_Egeler_zensus_PDF.pdf?__blob=publicationFile |language=German |accessdate=28 September 2017 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010094954/https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseService/Presse/Pressekonferenzen/2013/Zensus2011/Statement_Egeler_zensus_PDF.pdf?__blob=publicationFile |archivedate=10 October 2017 |trans-title=2011 Census – Facts about the population of Germany on 31 May 2013 in Berlin |url-status=live}}</ref> Most of the Muslims are [[Sunni Islam|Sunnis]] and [[Alevites]] from Turkey, but there are a small number of [[Shia Islam|Shi'ites]], [[Ahmadiyya]]s and other denominations. Other religions comprise less than one per cent of Germany's population.<ref name="Zensus 2011" /> In 2011, formal members of the Jewish community represented no more than 0.2% of the total German population, and 60% of them resided in [[Berlin]].<ref>{{cite news|title= Germany: Berlin Facing Challenge Of Assimilating Russian-Speaking Jews |newspaper=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |date=8 April 2008 |url=http://www.rferl.org/a/1078688.html|publisher=Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty|access-date=12 March 2017}}</ref> An estimated 80 to 90 percent of these Jews in Germany are Russian-speaking immigrants from the [[Post-Soviet states|former Soviet Union]], who came to Germany from the 1980s onwards.<ref>{{cite web|title=German Jews more than victims, community head says|url= http://jewishjournal.com/news/world/86509/|publisher=Jewish Journal|date=5 January 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Jewish Berlin: Myths and Fragmentation|url=http://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/109-jewish-berlin-myths-and-fragmentation|publisher=Humanity in Action|access-date=12 March 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170313043802/http://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/109-jewish-berlin-myths-and-fragmentation |archive-date=13 March 2017}}</ref> A study in 2018 estimated that 38% of the population are not members of any religious organization or [[religious denomination|denomination]],<ref name="FOWID">{{Cite web |url=https://fowid.de/meldung/religionszugehoerigkeiten-2018 |title=Religionszugehörigkeiten 2018 |date=25 July 2019 |website=Forschungsgruppe Weltanschauungen in Deutschland |language=de |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725164543/https://fowid.de/meldung/religionszugehoerigkeiten-2018 |archivedate=25 July 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> though up to a third may still consider themselves religious. [[Irreligion in Germany]] is strongest in the former [[East Germany]], which used to be predominantly Protestant before the enforcement of [[state atheism]], and in major metropolitan areas.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/22/atheism-east-germany-godless-place |title=Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth |last=Thompson|first=Peter |date=22 September 2012 |work=The Guardian|url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130929114047/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/22/atheism-east-germany-godless-place |archivedate=29 September 2013 }}</ref><ref name="georgetown1">{{Cite web |url=http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/germany |title=Germany |publisher=[[Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs]] |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150324170951/http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/germany |archivedate=24 March 2015 |accessdate=27 March 2015}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page