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Whilst religious affiliation within Aberdeen is diverse, the majority of the population (58%) declared no religion in the 2021 United Kingdom census. Christianity is the dominant religion with 30% of the population associating their beliefs with Christian churches including the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church. [1]
Liberal religion in Aberdeen and the North East of Scotland is represented through a Unitarian community and the city is also home to an Islamic mosque in Old Aberdeen and a small Jewish congregation. The Hazelhead area holds a Thai Buddhist temple. There is no formal Hindu building. The University of Aberdeen has a small society of the Baháʼí Faith.
The largest Christian church in Aberdeen is the presbyterian Church of Scotland overseen by the Presbytery of the North East and Northern Isles which manages 23 parishes within the city boundary. [2]
The Scottish Episcopal Church has 9 congregations in Aberdeen [3] with a total membership of 993. [4] The city is within the episcopal Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney.
In the Middle Ages, Aberdeen contained houses of the Carmelites (Whitefriars) and Franciscans (Greyfriars), the latter surviving in modified form as the chapel of Marischal College as late as the early 20th century.
Also churches still in use today are located in the city centre including Bon Accord Free Church which is situated on Rosemount viaduct near His Majesty's Theatre, Gerrard Street Baptist Church, and Gilcomston South Church situated at the corner of Union Street and Summer Street. Many other churches in the city centre have been converted into bars and restaurants.
In the Middle Ages there was only one burgh kirk - the Kirk of St Nicholas, one of Scotland's largest parish churches. Like a number of other Scottish kirks, it was subdivided after the Reformation, in this case into the East and West churches. The Kirk of St Nicholas congregation is now an ecumenical partnership in membership of both the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church. The large kirkyard of the Kirk of St Nicholas is separated from Union Street by a 147 ft (45 m) long Ionic façade, built in 1831. The divided church within, with a central tower and spire, forms one continuous building 220 ft (67 m) in length.
The pre-Reformation Diocese of Aberdeen is said to have been first founded at Mortlach in Banffshire by Máel Coluim II (1005–1034) to celebrate his victory there over the Danes, but in 1137 David I (1124–1153) transferred the bishopric to Old Aberdeen, and twenty years later St Machar's Cathedral was begun, a few hundred yards from the river Don. With the exception of the period of the episcopate of William Elphinstone (1484–1511), building progressed slowly. Gavin Dunbar, who followed him in 1518, completed the structure by adding the two western spires and the southern transept. The church suffered severely at the Reformation, but is still used by the Church of Scotland as a parish church.
St Mary's Cathedral is the Roman Catholic cathedral. A Gothic Revival building, it was erected in 1859.
St. Andrew's Cathedral is the Scottish Episcopal Cathedral. It was constructed in 1817, as St Andrew's Chapel, and was Archibald Simpson's first commission. The church was raised to Cathedral status in 1914. The Episcopal Church in Aberdeen is notable for having consecrated the first bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Samuel Seabury. The cathedral was renovated in the 1930s to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Seabury's consecration. The memorial was dedicated with a ceremony attended by the then US ambassador to the UK, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
Belmont street at the turn of the 19th century was better known as Holy Street as crowds would file out of six churches set over the 400 metre road. The last remaining church congregation in Belmont Street has now moved to Union Square South Christ Central. Triple Kirks pub, The Academy Shopping mall, Neptune Night Club, and Slain's Castle theme pub is all that remains of the 19th-century traditional church. Ironically the last church to be in Belmont Street was the charismatic newfrontiers church, Christ Central, which met in the Belmont Picturehouse. On Justice Street, is the category B listed St Peter's Roman Catholic Church which opened in 1804.
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or more curates, and who operates from a parish church. Historically, a parish often covered the same geographical area as a manor. Its association with the parish church remains paramount.
The Scottish Episcopal Church is a Christian denomination in Scotland. Scotland's third largest church, the Scottish Episcopal Church has 303 local congregations. It is also an ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion.
Glasgow Cathedral is a parish church of the Church of Scotland in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest cathedral in mainland Scotland and the oldest building in Glasgow. The cathedral was the seat of the Archbishop of Glasgow, and the mother church of the Archdiocese of Glasgow and the province of Glasgow, until the Scottish Reformation in the 16th century. Glasgow Cathedral and St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney are the only medieval cathedrals in Scotland to have survived the Reformation virtually intact. The medieval Bishop's Castle stood to the west of the cathedral until 1789. Although notionally it lies within the Townhead area of the city, the Cathedral grounds and the neighboring Necropolis are considered to be their own district within the city.
The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts is one of the nine original dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
St Magnus Cathedral dominates the skyline of Kirkwall, the main town of Orkney, a group of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. It is the oldest cathedral in Scotland, and the most northerly cathedral in the United Kingdom, a fine example of Romanesque architecture built for the bishops of Orkney when the islands were ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney. It is owned not by the church, but by the burgh of Kirkwall as a result of an act of King James III of Scotland following Orkney's annexation by the Scottish Crown in 1468.
Archibald Simpson was a Scottish architect, who along with his rival John Smith, is regarded as having fashioned the character of Aberdeen as "The Granite City".
The Bishop of Orkney was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Orkney, one of thirteen medieval bishoprics of Scotland. It included both Orkney and Shetland. It was based for almost all of its history at St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall.
The Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney is one of the seven dioceses of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Created in 1865, the diocese covers the historic county of Aberdeenshire, and the Orkney and Shetland island groups. It shares with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen a Christian heritage that can be traced back to Norman times, and incorporates the ancient Diocese of Orkney, founded in 1035.
The Diocese of Edinburgh is one of the seven dioceses of the Scottish Episcopal Church. It covers the City of Edinburgh, the Lothians, the Borders and Falkirk. The diocesan centre is St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh. The Bishop of Edinburgh is the Right Revd Dr John Armes.
St Margaret of Scotland, also known as St Margaret's, Gallowgate, is a Scottish Episcopal Church, in Aberdeen, Scotland.
The Archdiocese of Dublin is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the eastern part of Ireland. Its archepiscopal see includes the republic's capital city – Dublin. The cathedral church of the archdiocese is St Mary's Pro-Cathedral. Dublin was formally recognised as a metropolitan province in 1152 by the Synod of Kells. Its second archbishop, Lorcán Ua Tuathail, is also its patron saint.
St Andrew's Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew, is a cathedral of the Scottish Episcopal Church situated in the Scottish city of Aberdeen. It is the see of the Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, who is the Ordinary of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney.
The Cathedral Church of St Mary of the Assumption, usually known as St Mary's Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It is the home of the see of the Bishop of Aberdeen, who is the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen in the Province of St Andrews & Edinburgh. It stands at 20 Huntly Street in Aberdeen.
St. James Episcopal Church at 76 Federal Street at the corner of Huntington Street in New London, Connecticut is a historic church in the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut. The congregation was founded in 1725, and the current church – the congregation's third – was built from 1847 to 1850 to designs in the Gothic Revival style by Richard Upjohn.
Church architecture in Scotland incorporates all church building within the modern borders of Scotland, from the earliest Christian structures in the sixth century until the present day. The early Christian churches for which there is evidence are basic masonry-built constructions on the west coast and islands. As Christianity spread, local churches tended to remain much simpler than their English counterparts. By the eighth century more sophisticated ashlar block-built buildings began to be constructed. From the eleventh century, there were larger and more ornate Romanesque buildings, as with Dunfermline Abbey and St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney. From the twelfth century the introduction of new monastic orders led to a boom in ecclesiastical building, often using English and Continental forms. From the thirteenth century elements of the European Gothic style began to appear in Scotland, culminating in buildings such as Glasgow Cathedral and the rebuilt Melrose Abbey. Renaissance influences can be seen in a move to a low-massive style that was probably influenced by contacts with Italy and the Netherlands.
St Peter's Church is a Roman Catholic Parish church in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was built from 1803 and opened in 1804. It is situated on Justice Street between Peacock's Close and Market Stance, next to St Andrew's Cathedral in the centre of the city. It was the first permanent Roman Catholic Church to be built in Aberdeen after the Reformation and is a category B listed building.
The Triple Kirks in Aberdeen, Scotland were built at the time of the Disruption of 1843 when the Free Church of Scotland split from the Church of Scotland. The three churches were all part of a single building with a tall spire but they housed separate congregations. The East Free Kirk was completed 1843 followed by the West Free Kirk and South Free Kirk early the following year. From about 1966 the building progressively fell into disuse and became mostly ruinous but with the spire remaining.