Religion in Romania

Romania is a secular state, thus having no national religion. The majority of the country's citizens are, however, members of the Romanian Orthodox Church, with 86.7% of the country's population identifying as Eastern Orthodox in the 2002 census (see also: History of Christianity in Romania). Other important religions include the Roman Catholicism (4.7%), Protestantism (3.7%), Pentecostal denominations (1.5%) and the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church (0.9%). Romania also has a small but historically significant Muslim minority, concentrated in Dobrogea, who are mostly of Turkish ethnicity and number 67,500 people. Based on the 2002 census data, there are also approximately 6,000 Jews and 23,105 people who are of no religion and/or atheist.

Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodoxy is the largest religious denomination in Romania, numbering 18,817,975 according to the 2002 census, or 86.7% of the population. The rate of church attendance is, however, significantly lower. According to a September-October 2007 poll, with respect to church attendance there are four categories in Romania (percentages relative to general population): 38% go to church several times a month or more (of which 7% go weekly or more often), 20% go to church on the average monthly, 33% go only one or two times a year, and 7% don't attend church. [Center for Urban and Regional Sociology (CURS), " [http://www.cna.ro/cercetari/sondaje/Raport%20Romana.pdf Influenţa media asupra comportamentului electoral] " ("Mass-media influence on the electoral behavior"), September-October 2007 poll; beneficiary: National Audio-Visual Council; sample: 2000 subjects aged 18 (age of majority) or over from homes with TV sets; margin of error: ±2.2%. ro icon]

Roman Catholicism

According to the 2002 census, there are 1,028,401 Roman Catholics in Romania, making up 4.7% of the population. The majority of Roman Catholics are of Hungarian ethnicity, even though there are also more than 300,000 ethnic Romanian Catholics, mainly in Transylvania.

Greek Catholicism

According to the 2002 census, there are 191,556 Greek-Catholics in Romania, making up 0.88% of the population [ [http://www.edrc.ro/recensamant.jsp 2002 Romanian census official data] .] . The majority of Greek-Catholics live in the northern part of Transylvania.

According to the information, valid for the end of 2003, given in the 2005 "Annuario Pontificio", the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church then had 737,900 followers, many bishops, some 716 diocesan priests and 347 seminarians of its own rite. The dispute over the figure is included in the United States Department of State report on religious freedom in Romania. [ [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51575.htm Romania-International Religious Freedom Report 2005 on U.S. Department of State Website] ] The Romanian Orthodox Church continues to claim many of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church's properties.

Protestantism

According to 2002 census [http://www.recensamant.ro/pagini/rezultate.html] protestants represent 5.2% of total population. Major denominations are Pentecostals (1.5%), Baptists (0.6%), Seventh-day Adventists (0.4%), Unitarians (0.3%) and some other Evangelical groups.

ee also

*Religion by country
*Religion in Europe
*Islam in Romania
*History of the Jews in Romania

Notes

References

* Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, "Religion and Politics in Post-communist Romania", Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 0195308530
* cite journal
last = Flora
first = Gavril
coauthors = and Georgina Szilagyi, Victor Roudometof
year = 2005
month = April
title = Religion and national identity in post-communist Romania
journal = Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans
volume = 7
issue = 1
pages = 35–55
doi = 10.1080/14613190500036917