Religion in Eritrea

Religion In Eritrea

There are two major religions in Eritrea, Christianity and Islam, however, the number of adherents is subject to debate. Eritrea: Religious Distribution (2002) indicates that Christianity makes up 63% of the population with Islam making up 37%. According to the Pew Research Center (2010), 62.9% are Christian, mostly followers of Oriental Orthodoxy, and to a lesser extent, Roman Catholicism, whilst the remaining 36.5% of the population are Muslim. In 2010 the United States Department of State (USDoS) estimated that 50% of the population was Muslim (Sunni) and around 48% Christian. Eritrea along with its southern neighbour Ethiopia was one of the first Christian countries in the world having officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. At the same time, it was also one of the first Muslim settlements in Africa, where a group of Muslims facing persecution in Mecca migrated to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), through modern day Eritrea.