Religion in Poland

Religion In Poland

Most residents of Poland adhere to the Christian faith, with 87.0% belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. The numerical dominance of the Catholic faith is a recent development in Polish history, resulting from the Nazi-engineered Holocaust of Polish Jews and the flight of German Protestants from the Soviet army and occupation at the end of World War II, as well as from the postwar westward shift of Poland's borders.

Catholicism plays an important role in the lives of many Poles and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland enjoys social prestige and political influence. The Church is widely respected by its members, who see it as a symbol of Polish heritage and culture. The rest of the population consists (in 2011) mainly of Eastern Orthodox (504,150 believers, Polish and Belarussian), Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland (61,738 members) and various Protestant churches (about 140,000) and Jehovah's Witnesses (129,270), in the largest religious minorities.

From the beginning of its statehood, different religious coexisted in Poland. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Poland was famous for its unique religious tolerance reasserted by the Statute of Kalisz (1264) and the Warsaw Confederation (1573). In the 15th and 18th century, pressure from the Vatican caused tensions to rise between Catholics and Protestants after the Edict of Wieluń and later the Tumult of Torun contributing to the Age of Enlightenment. When Poland lost the last vestiges of its independence to foreign invaders in 1795, Poles were subjected to religious discrimination for 123 years under the German rule and the Imperial Russia.