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Religion in Poland (2021)[1]
Religion in Poland is rapidly declining, although historically it had been one of the most Catholic countries in the world.[2]
According to a 2018 report by the Pew Research Center, the nation was the most rapidly secularizing of over a hundred countries measured, "as measured by the disparity between the religiosity of young people and their elders."[3] The rate of decline has been described as "devastating"[4] the former social prestige and political influence that the Catholic Church in Poland once enjoyed.[5] Most Poles adhere to Roman Catholicism. 71.3% of the population identified themselves as such in the 2021 census, down from 87.6% in 2011.[4] According to church statistics, approximately 28% of Catholics attend mass weekly.[6] The church's reputation has declined significantly in response to sexual abuse scandals, its support of a near-total abortion ban in Poland, and close ties to the Law and Justice party, often considered its de facto political proxy in the country.[2][3][4]
The current extent of this numerical dominance results largely from The Holocaust of Jews living in Poland carried out by Nazi Germany and the World War II casualties among Polish religious minorities.[7][8][9][10] Its members regard it as a repository of Polish heritage and culture.[11] The rest of the population consists mainly of Eastern Orthodox (Polish Orthodox Church – approximately 507,196 believers),[12] various Protestant churches (the largest of which is the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland, with 61,217 members)[12] and Jehovah's Witnesses (116,935).[12] There are about 55,000 Greek Catholics in Poland.[12] Other religions practiced in Poland, by less than 0.1% of the population, include Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.[13]
In the 2021 census, the most common religion was Roman Catholicism, whose followers comprised 72.4% of the population, followed by the Eastern Orthodoxy with 0.4%, Jehovah's Witnesses with 0.3%, and various Protestant denominations comprising 0.4% of the Polish population and 0.1% for Greek Catholic Churches. According to Statistics Poland in 2018, 93.5% of the population was affiliated with a religion; 3.1% did not belong to any religion. Roman Catholicism comprised 91.9% of the population, with Eastern Orthodoxy at 0.9% (rising from 0.4% in 2011, caused in part by recent immigration from Ukraine).[14]
In 2015, 61.1% of the population gave religion high to very high importance whilst 13.8% regarded religion as of little or no importance. The percentage of believers is much higher in the eastern parts of Poland.[15]
| Religion | 2011 census[16] | 2021 census[1] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % | Number | % | |
| Christianity | 34,194,133 | 88.79 | 27,550,861 | 72.43 |
| –Roman Catholics | 33,728,734 | 87.58 | 27,121,331 | 71.30 |
| –Orthodox Christians | 156,284 | 0.41 | 151,648 | 0.40 |
| –Jehovah's Witnesses | 137,308 | 0.36 | 108,754 | 0.29 |
| –Lutherans | 70,766 | 0.18 | 65,407 | 0.17 |
| –Greek Catholics | 33,281 | 0.09 | 33,209 | 0.09 |
| –Pentecostals | 26,433 | 0.07 | 30,105 | 0.08 |
| –Mariavites | 9,990 | 0.03 | 12,248 | 0.03 |
| –Polish Catholics | 8,807 | 0.02 | 6,942 | 0.02 |
| –Baptists | 5,982 | 0.02 | 5,181 | 0.01 |
| –Seventh-day Adventists | 4,947 | 0.01 | 3,129 | 0.01 |
| –Other Christians | 11,601 | 0.03 | 12,907 | 0.03 |
| Buddhism | 4,817 | 0.01 | 3,236 | 0.01 |
| Islam | 4,593 | 0.01 | 2,209 | 0.01 |
| Other religions | 18,408 | 0.05 | 44,694 | 0.12 |
| No religion | 929,420 | 2.41 | 2,611,506 | 6.87 |
| Undeclared | 3,360,451 | 8.73 | 7,823,612 | 20.57 |
| Total | 38,511,822 | 100.00 | 38,036,118 | 100.00 |
- ^ a b "Tablice z ostatecznymi danymi w zakresie przynależności narodowo-etnicznej, języka używanego w domu oraz przynależności do wyznania religijnego - NSP 2021". Statistics Poland. 28 September 2023. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
- ^ a b Higgins, Andrew (24 October 2023). "Polish Bishop Resigns After Diocese Is Rocked by Sex Scandal". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
Trust in the church, according to experts, has also been damaged by its close alliance with Poland's nationalist governing party, Law and Justice... Long seen as a Catholic stronghold that, in contrast to Ireland and Spain, had managed to hold back a tide of secularization that has swept across most of Europe, Poland has over the past decade seen a sharp decline in church attendance, though most still declare themselves Christians. Enrollment in seminaries has also plummeted, forcing several to shut down. Lamenting that a process previously referred to by experts as "creeping secularization" was now "galloping," the church report warned that "the church in Poland is entering a rather dangerous 'twist' in its history. Much depends on how it will be able to defeat this."
- ^ a b Rocca, Francis X.; Ojewska, Natalia (19 February 2022). "In Traditionally Catholic Poland, the Young Are Leaving the Church". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
- ^ a b c Tilles, Daniel (29 September 2023). "Proportion of Catholics in Poland falls to 71%, new census data show". Notes From Poland. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
- ^ "Religion in Poland". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
- ^ Tilles, Daniel (14 January 2023). "Dramatic fall in church attendance in Poland, official figures show". Notes From Poland. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
- ^ Project in Posterum, Poland World War II casualties. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
- ^ Holocaust: Five Million Forgotten: Non-Jewish Victims of the Shoah. Remember.org.
- ^ AFP/Expatica, Polish experts lower nation's WWII death toll, Expatica.com, 30 August 2009
- ^ Tomasz Szarota & Wojciech Materski, Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami, Warsaw, IPN 2009, ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6 (Introduction online. Archived 1 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine)
- ^ [1] Archived 1 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference
MRSwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Ciecieląg, Paweł, ed. (2016). Wyznania religijne w Polsce 2012-2014 (PDF). Warszawa: Główny Urząd Statystyczny. pp. 142–173. ISBN 9788370276126.
- ^ "Quality of life and social capital in Poland. Results of the Social Cohesion Survey 2018". stat.gov.pl. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
- ^ "Infographic - Religiousness of Polish inhabitiants". stat.gov.pl. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
- ^ "Wybrane tablice dotyczące przynależności narodowo-etnicznej, języka i wyznania - NSP 2011". Statistics Poland. 24 April 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2021.