The Romanian state officially recognizes 18 religions and denominations.[3] 86.53% of the country's stable population identified as part of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the 2011 census (see also: History of Christianity in Romania). Other major Christian denominations include the Catholic Church (both Latin Catholicism (4.62%) and Greek Catholicism (0.8%–3.3%)), Calvinism (3.19%), and Pentecostal denominations (1.92%). This amounts to approximately 99% of the population identifying as Christian.[4] Romania also has a small but historically significant Muslim minority of around 44,000 people, concentrated in Northern Dobruja, who are mostly of Crimean Tatar and Turkish ethnicity. According to the 2011 census data, there are also approximately 3,500 Jews, around 21,000 atheists and about 19,000 people not identifying with any religion. The 2011 census numbers are based on a stable population of 20,121,641 people and exclude a portion of about 6% due to unavailable data.[5]
According to the 2022 census, 76,215 people, approximately 0.4% of the total population, indicated that their religion was Islam.[6]
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the largest religious denomination in Romania, numbering 16,307,004 according to the 2011 census, or 81.04% of the population. The rate of church attendance is, however, significantly lower. According to a poll conducted by INSCOP in July 2015, 37.8% of Romanians who declare themselves to be religious go to church only on major holidays, 25.4% once a week (especially on Sunday), 18.9% once a month, 10.2% once a year or less, 3.4% say they do not go to church, 2.7% a few times a week, and only 0.9% say they go to church daily.[7]
According to the 2011 census, there are 870,774 Catholics belonging to the Latin Church in Romania, making up 4.33% of the population. The largest ethnic groups are Hungarians (500,444, including Székelys; 41% of the Hungarians), Romanians (297,246 or 1.8%), Germans (21,324 or 59%), and Roma (20,821 or 3.3%), as well as a majority of the country's Slovaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Italians, Czechs, Poles, and Csangos (27,296 in all).
According to the 2011 census, there are 150,593 Romanian Greek Catholics in Romania, making up 0.75% of the population. The majority of Greek Catholics live in the northern part of Transylvania. Most are Romanians (124,563), with the remainder mostly Hungarians or Roma.
On the other hand, according to data published in the 2016 Annuario Pontificio, the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church had 504,280 members, 8 bishops, 1,225 parishes, some 835 diocesan priests and 235 seminarians of its own rite at the end of 2012.[8][9] However, according to the 2011 Romanian government census, the number of its followers living in Romania was as low as 150,593, of which 124,563 are ethnic Romanians.[10] In 2022, the church estimated their numbers at 488,000, noting that many citizens whose ancestors were forced to covert during the Communist regime had rediscovered their roots and joined the Greek Catholic Church.[11]
The Romanian Orthodox Church continues to claim many of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church's properties.[12] The law provides for the restitution of religious properties confiscated between 1940 and 1989, if they are still owned by the state; however restitution is moving slowly.[11]
Currently there are three Lutheran denominations in Romania: The larges one, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Romania, has some Slovak and Romanian speaking congregations, but is mostly a Hungarian speaking denomination. The Evangelical Church of Augustan Confession in Romania is a strict German speaking denomination with some congregations holding bilingual services. The smallest one is the newly founded Confessional Lutheran Church in Romania, which is a Lutheran Church–Missouri Synodforeign mission with 3 congregations in Brașov, Bucharest and Suceava.[13]
The Reformed Church in Romania is an exclusive Hungarian speaking denomination with some 495.000 members, making it the largest protestant denomination in the country. Other calvinist denominations with presence in the country include a missionary congregation of the URCNA in Bucharest[14] and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Central and Eastern Europe which has 13 congregations in Romania.[15]
Jehovah's Witnesses were banned and persecuted in some occasions in Romania from 1948 to 1989.[16][17] In 1989, after the Romanian ban was lifted, members and representatives of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses were able to gather thousands of Romanian Jehovah's Witnesses that had been separated for a long time,[18] but some of them still rejected certain doctrinal changes and preferred their autonomy, forming The True Faith Association of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1992.[19][20]
Nowadays, Romania is the only country in the world to have 2 different Jehovah's Witnesses organizations.[19][20]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) had some presence in the country from 1899–1913. Most of these early members emigrated to the west. The LDS Church was reintroduced in 1990 and a small branch was formed in Bucharest in 1991. In 2019, the LDS Church claimed 3,064 members in 15 congregations in Romania.[22][23]
Since the end of World War II, thousands of Nepali, Bangladeshi and Indian immigrants have brought Hinduism with them. The International Society of Krishna Consciousness operates nearly a dozen temples throughout the nation's largest cities, such as Bucharest, Brasov, Timisaora, Oradea, and others. These temples organize large festivals with Hindu significance such as Ratha Yatra, Diwali and Durga Puja, and see thousands of attendees each year from various religions and people.
Although the number of adherents of Islam is relatively small, Islam enjoys a 700-year tradition in Romania particularly in Northern Dobruja,[24] a region on the Black Sea coast which was part of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries (ca. 1420–1878).[25] According to the 2011 census, 64,337 people, approx. 0.3% of the total population, indicated that their religion was Islam. The majority of the Romanian Muslims belong to the Sunni Islam.
According to the 2022 census, 76,215 people, approximately 0.4% of the total population, indicated that their religion was Islam.[6]
97% of the Romanian Muslims are residents of the two counties forming Northern Dobruja: eighty-five percent live in Constanța County, and twelve percent in Tulcea County.[24] The remaining Muslims live in cities like Bucharest, Brăila, Călărași, Galați, Giurgiu, Drobeta-Turnu Severin.[24] Ethnically, most of them are Tatars, followed by Turks, Albanians, Muslim Roma, and immigrants from the Middle East and Africa,[24][26] although there are a few ethnic Romanian converts to Islam who even established a mosque in 2014.[27][28] Since 2007, there are Indonesian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers coming to Romania, who are mostly Muslims.
In Romania there are about 80 mosques.[29] One of the largest is the Grand Mosque of Constanța, originally known as the Carol I Mosque. It was built between 1910 and 1913, on the order of Carol I, in appreciation for the Muslim community in Constanța. According to the legal status of the Muslim denomination, the Romanian Muslim community is officially represented by a mufti, while the Muftiat is the denominational and cultural representative institution of the Muslim community,[30] with a status similar with that of the other denominations officially recognized by the Romanian state.[31] Likewise, Muslims in Constanța, which comprise approx. 6% of the population of this county, are represented in the Parliament by the Democratic Union of Turkish-Muslim Tatars of Romania, founded on 29 December 1989.[32]
Other denominations not listed above but recognised as official religions by the Romanian state are listed here. The Jehovah's Witnesses number around 50,000 adherents (0.25% of the stable population). Old Believers make up about 0.16% of the population with 30,000 adherents, who are mainly ethnic Russians living in the Danube Delta region. Serbian Orthodox believers are present in the areas which border Serbia and number about 14,000 people. Once fairly well represented in Romania, Judaism has fallen to around 3,500 adherents in 2011, which is about 0.02% of the population. Less still is the Armenian Christian minority, numbering about 400 people in total. The Association of Religion Data Archives reports roughly 1,900 followers of the Baháʼí Faith in the country as of 2010.[33] Lastly, the number of people who have identified with other religions than the ones explicitly mentioned in the 2011 census comes to a total of about 30,000 people.[34]
Neopagan groups have emerged in Romania over the latest decade, virtually all of them being ethno-pagan as in the other countries of European Union,[35] although still small in comparison to other movements such as Ősmagyar Vallás in Hungary.
The revived ethnic religion of the Romanians is called Zalmoxianism and is based on Thracian mythological sources, with prominence given to the figure of god Zalmoxis.[36] One of the most prominent Zalmoxian groups is the Gebeleizis Association (Romanian: Societatea Gebeleizis).[36]
In the same time, in Romania there is a recognized pagan organization: THE NEW PAGAN DAWN Association,[37][38][39][40] which attempts to defend the rights of the pagan community in Romania and to represent its voice.
Approximately 40,000 people have identified as nonreligious in Romania in the 2011 census, of which 21,000 declared atheists and 19,000 agnostics. Most of them are concentrated in major cities such as Bucharest or Cluj-Napoca.[41]Irreligion is much lower in Romania than in most other European countries; one of the lowest in Europe.[42]
Other and unknown
In the 2021 Romanian census, 13.94% of respondents refused to state a religious affiliation.[1]
Attitudes towards religion
This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: This section needs to be updated with data and information from the 2021 census. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(March 2024)
Religious affiliation in Romania according to the 2011 census, given as percentages of the total stable population.[4]
In 2008, 19% of Romanians placed "Faith" among maximum four answers to the question "Among the following values, which one is most important in relation to your idea of happiness?". It is the third highest number, after Armenia (27%), and Georgia (26%), at equality with Turkey (19%) and Cyprus (19%). The mean in EU-27 was 9%.[43] According to a study by the Soros Foundation, over three quarters of Romanians consider themselves religious people, in a greater amount from rural areas, from women, from elders and from those with low income.[44]
In 2011, 49% of Bucharesters declared that they only go to church on social occasions (weddings, Easter, etc.) or not at all. Only 26% told the same in the other parts of the country.[45] According to preliminary data from the national 2011 census, 98.4% of the population declared themselves adherents of a religious denomination. This figure was contested,[46] suggesting that the number of believers in disproportionately large. The final data for the 2011 national census shows a reduction of this figure to about 93.5% but includes a much larger portion of the population where religion-related data is missing (6.26%).
According to a survey conducted in July 2015, 96.5% of Romanians believe in God, 84.4% believe in saints, 69.6% believe in the existence of heaven, 57.5% in that of hell, and 54.4% in afterlife.[47] 83% of Romanians say they observe Sundays and religious holidays, 74.6% worship when they pass by a church, 65.6% say they pray regularly, 60.2% state they sanctify their belongings, house, car, and 53.6% of Romanians donate regularly to the church.[47]
The laws of Romania establish the freedom of religion as well as outlawing religious discrimination, and provide a registration framework for religious organizations to receive government recognition and funding (this is not a prerequisite for being able to practice in the country). The government also has programs for compensating religious organizations for property confiscated during World War II and during the rule of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Representatives of minority groups have complained that the government favors the Romanian Orthodox Church over other religious groups, and there have been several incidences of local government and police failing to enforce anti-discrimination laws reliably.[48]
In 2023, the country was scored 3 out of 4 for religious freedom.[49]
History
During the existence of the Kingdom of Romania in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the government of Romania systematically favored the Orthodox and Romanian Greek Catholic Churches.[50] Non-Christians were denied citizenship until the late 19th century, and even then faced obstacles and limited rights.[51] Antisemitism was a prominent feature of Liberal political currents in the 19th century, before being abandoned by Liberal parties and adopted by left-wing peasant and later fascist groups in the early 20th century.[52][53] During World War II, several hundred thousand Jews were killed by Romanian or German forces in Romania.[54] Although Jews living in territories belonging to Romania prior to the beginning of the war largely avoided this fate, they nevertheless faced harsh antisemitic laws passed by the Antonescu government.[54] During the Socialist era following World War II, the Romanian government exerted significant control over the Orthodox Church and closely monitored religious activity, as well as promoting atheism among the population.[55] Dissident priests were censured, arrested, deported, and/or defrocked, but the Orthodox Church as a whole acquiesced to the government's demands and received support from it.[56]
1 Census results were contested by the Romanian Greek Catholic Church[57] which has a very different self-declared membership of: 2,011,635 (1995), 1,390,610 (2000), 707,452 (2010) and 504,280 (2016)[61]
↑ Ronald Roberson. "The Eastern Catholic Churches 2016"(PDF). Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Retrieved 29 November 2016. Information sourced from Annuario Pontificio 2012 edition
↑ Hubbes László-Attila, Rozália Klára Bakó (2011). "Romanian and Hungarian Ethno-Pagan Organizations on the Net". Reconect Working Paper No. 1/2011. Sapientia – Hungarian University of Transylvania. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1863263. SSRN1863263.
↑ Ornea, Zigu Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească ("The 1930s: The Romanian Far Right"), Editura Fundației Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995. p. 395
↑ The Jewish-Romanian MarxistConstantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea criticised Poporanist claims in his work on the 1907 revolt, Neoiobăgia ("Neo-Serfdom"), arguing that, as favorite victims of prejudice (and most likely to be retaliated against), Jews were least likely to exploit: "[The Jewish tenant's] position is inferior to that of the exploited, for he is not a boyar, a gentleman, but a Yid, as well as to the administration, whose subordinate bodies he may well be able to satisfy, but whose upper bodies remain hostile towards him. His position is also rendered difficult by the antisemitic trend, strong as it gets, and by the hostile public opinion, and by the press, overwhelmingly antisemitic, but mostly by the régime itself – which, while awarding him all the advantages of neo-serfdom on one hand, uses, on the other, his position as a Yid to make of him a distraction and a scapegoat for the régime's sins."
↑ Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu. The Romanian Orthodox Church and Post-Communist Democratisation. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 8 (Dec., 2000), pp. 1467–1488
↑ Lucian N. Leustean. Between Moscow and London: Romanian Orthodoxy and National Communism, 1960–1965. The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Jul., 2007), pp. 491–521
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Religion and Politics in Post-communist Romania, Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN0-19-530853-0
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania," in Quo Vadis Eastern Europe? Religion, State, Society and Inter-religious Dialogue after Communism, ed. by Ines A. Murzaku (Bologna, Italy: University of Bologna Press, 2009), pp.221–235.
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "Politics, National Symbols and the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral," Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 58, no. 7 (November 2006), pp.1119–1139.
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "Pulpits, Ballots and Party Cards: Religion and Elections in Romania," Religion, State and Society, vol. 33, no 4 (December 2005), pp.347–366.
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "The Devil's Confessors: Priests, Communists, Spies and Informers," East European Politics and Societies, vol. 19, no. 4 (November 2005), pp.655–685.
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "Religious Education in Romania," Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (September 2005), pp.381–401.
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "Religion, Politics and Sexuality in Romania," Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 57, no. 2 (March 2005), pp.291–310.
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "The Romanian Orthodox Church and Post-Communist Democratization", Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 52, no. 8 (December 2000), pp.1467–1488, republished in East European Perspectives, vol. 3, no. 4 (22 February 2001), available online at http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1342524.html, and vol. 3, no. 5 (7 March 2001), available online at http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1342525.html.
The Romanian Orthodox Church, or Patriarchate of Romania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 1925, the church's Primate has borne the title of Patriarch. Its jurisdiction covers the territories of Romania and Moldova, with additional dioceses for Romanians living in nearby Serbia and Hungary, as well as for diaspora communities in Central and Western Europe, North America and Oceania. It is the only autocephalous church within Eastern Orthodoxy to have a Romance language for liturgical use.
Religion in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was dominated by the fact that it became the first state to have as one objective of its official ideology the elimination of existing religion, and the prevention of future implanting of religious belief, with the goal of establishing state atheism (gosateizm). However, the main religions of pre-revolutionary Russia persisted throughout the entire Soviet period and religion was never officially outlawed. Christians belonged to various denominations: Orthodox, Catholic, Baptist and various other Protestant denominations. The majority of the Muslims in the Soviet Union were Sunni, with the notable exception of Azerbaijan, which was majority Shia. Judaism also had many followers. Other religions, practiced by a small number of believers, included Buddhism and Shamanism.
Teoctist was the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1986 to 2007.
Moldova's constitution provides for freedom of religion and complete separation of church and state, though the constitution cites the "exceptional importance" of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation is illegal, and incitement to religious and ethnic hatred was made illegal in May 2022. Religion in Moldova is dominated by the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity. According to the 2014 Moldovan census, 90 per cent of the country reported to be of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith. Of this number, around eighty to 90 per cent of Orthodox Moldovans belong to the Moldovan Orthodox Church which is subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church, and has played a powerful role in deepening Russia's influence in Moldova. The remaining 10–20 per cent of Orthodox Moldovans belong to the Metropolis of Bessarabia, which is subordinate to the Romanian Orthodox Church.
The Romanian Revolution in 1989, which ended the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu in December 1989, offered the 15 religious denominations then recognized in Romania the chance to regain the terrain lost after 1945, the year when Dr. Petru Groza of the Ploughmen's Front, a party closely associated with the Communists, became prime minister. From that time, the Romanian Communist Party started a campaign of secularization, seeking to transform the country into an atheist state along Marxist-Leninist lines.
Religion has been a major influence on the societies, cultures, traditions, philosophies, artistic expressions and laws within present-day Europe. The largest religion in Europe is Christianity. However, irreligion and practical secularisation are also prominent in some countries. In Southeastern Europe, three countries have Muslim majorities, with Christianity being the second-largest religion in those countries. Ancient European religions included veneration for deities such as Zeus. Modern revival movements of these religions include Heathenism, Rodnovery, Romuva, Druidry, Wicca, and others. Smaller religions include Indian religions, Judaism, and some East Asian religions, which are found in their largest groups in Britain, France, and Kalmykia.
Article 200 was a section of the Penal Code of Romania that criminalised homosexual relationships. It was introduced in 1968, under the communist regime, during the rule Nicolae Ceaușescu, and remained in force until it was repealed by the Năstase government on 22 June 2001. Under pressure from the Council of Europe, it had been amended on 14 November 1996, when homosexual sex in private between two consenting adults was decriminalised. However, the amended Article 200 continued to criminalise same-sex relationships if they were displayed publicly or caused a "public scandal". It also continued to ban the promotion of homosexual activities, as well as the formation of gay-centred organisations.
Catholic Christianity is the predominant religion in Malta. The Constitution of Malta establishes Catholicism as the state religion, and it is also reflected in various elements of Maltese culture.
Religion in Austria is predominantly Christianity, adhered to by 68.2% of the country's population according to the 2021 national survey conducted by Statistics Austria. Among Christians, 80.9% were Catholics, 7.2% were Orthodox Christians, 5.6% were Protestants, while the remaining 6.2% were other Christians, belonging to other denominations of the religion or not affiliated to any denomination. In the same census, 8.3% of the Austrians declared that their religion was Islam, 1.2% declared to believe in other non-Christian religions, and 22.4% declared they did not belong to any religion, denomination or religious community.
Lucian Turcescu is a Romanian-born Canadian professor of theology at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Romanian Catholics, like Catholics elsewhere, are members of the Catholic Church under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and Curia in Rome. The administration for the local Latin Church is centered in Bucharest, and comprises two archdioceses and four other dioceses. It is the second largest Romanian denomination after the Romanian Orthodox Church, and one of the 18 state-recognized religions. As of 2021, 5.2% of Romanians identified as Catholic. The 2012 census indicated that there were 741,276 Romanian citizens adhering to the Latin Church. Of these, the largest groups were Hungarians, Romanians, Germans and Slovaks.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Paraguay, with Catholicism being its largest denomination. Before the arrival of Spanish missionaries, the people residing in the territory of modern day Paraguay practiced a variety of religions.
The main religion traditionally practiced in Latvia is Christianity. As of 2019, it is the largest religion (68.84%), though only about 7% of the population attends religious services regularly.
Religion in Slovakia is predominantly Christianity, adhered to by about 68.8% of the population in 2021, a decrease from 75.5% in 2011 and 83.8% in 2001.
Jehovah's Witnesses Association of Romania is the formal name used by Jehovah's Witnesses for their operations in Romania, with a branch office located in Bucharest. It is one of eighteen officially recognised religious denominations in the country. According to a national census held in 2011, it has 49,820 adherents, making it the country's tenth-largest denomination. Each congregation is supervised by a group of elders appointed by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. The magazines The Watchtower and Awake! are both published in Romanian.
Lavinia Stan is a professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada. She currently lives in Montreal.
The anti-religious campaign of communist Romania was initiated by the People's Republic of Romania and continued by the Socialist Republic of Romania, which under the doctrine of Marxist–Leninist atheism took a hostile stance against religion and set its sights on the ultimate goal of an atheistic society wherein religion would be recognized as the ideology of the bourgeoisie.
The Romanian Orthodox Church operated within Communist Romania between 1947 and 1989, the era during which Romania was a socialist state. The regime's relationship with the Orthodox Church was ambiguous during this period: while the government declared itself "atheist", it actively collaborated with the Church, and, during the Nicolae Ceaușescu era, the government used the Orthodox Church as part of his promotion of national identity.
Irreligion in Romania is rare. Romania is one of the most religious countries in Europe, with 92% of people saying that they believe in God. Levels of Irreligion are much lower than in most other European countries and are among the lowest in the world. At the 2011 census, only 0.11% of the population declared itself atheist, up from the 2002 census, while 0.10% do not belong to any religion. While still one of the most religious countries in Europe, practicing, church and mass attendance is quite low, even compared to some less religious countries than Romania. It is mainly practiced by elderly people, mainly in rural areas, while in urban areas church attendance and practice is much lower. As of 2021, almost 85% are declared religious, of which about 73% are declared orthodox, 12% other religions, about 1% atheists or irreligious and about 14% declared nothing about religion.
Freedom of religion in Romania refers to the extent to which people in Romania are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.
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Geographical distribution of denominations
Romanian Orthodox Church organization
Eastern Orthodoxy in Romania (2002 census)
Catholicism in Romania (2002 census)
Protestantism in Romania (2002 census)
