Religion In Belgium
Religion in Belgium (2000s)
Catholic Church (57%) Other Christian (2%) Other religions (mostly Islam) (4%) Non religious (37%)| Part of a series on the |
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Christianity, in particular Catholicism, is the biggest religion in Belgium with about 57% of the population adhering to the Catholic Church, 1.7% to Protestantism, and 0.3% to Orthodox Christian Churches. Apart from Catholicism, other religions recognised by the Belgian state are Islam, Judaism, Protestantism, Anglicanism and the Orthodox Church. Belgium has a separation between the Church and State, and freedom of religion. Consequently, the State cannot force someone to adhere to a certain religion nor can it ask someone to which he or she adheres. 4% of the population is made up of mostly Muslim immigrants and other religions. Others estimate the Muslim population to be larger, 6% (3.9% in Flanders, 4% in Wallonia, 25.5% in Brussels), or even 8.1% as of 2011 (considering all the immigrant people with Islamic background). A 2006 inquiry in Flanders showed 55% of its inhabitants calling themselves religious, while 36% claimed belief that God created the world.
Read more about Religion In Belgium: Status of Recognized Denominations, History, Freedom of Religion
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to children by the hands of storytellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the philosophers celebrate in vain. And nothing stands between the people and the fictions except the silly falsehood that the fictions are literal truths, and that there is nothing in religion but fiction.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)