Religion in Belgium - History

History

The Reformation Era was particularly influential in the confluence of currents which formed modern Belgium. Belgium became in 1523 the site of the first martyrdom of Lutherans by the Roman Catholic Church as Augustinian monks Johann Esch and Heinrich Voes were burned at the stake in Brussels for their conversion to Lutheran doctrine. Before the end of the century, however, Belgium was occupied by armies of the Spanish Inquisition which showed as little tolerance for complacent or liberal Catholics as for Protestants. One of the effects was that Catholics fearing the Inquisition and preferring to live with Protestants who would at least tolerate them migrated in large numbers to Holland. After the Spanish military conquest of 1592, and until the re-establishment of religious freedom in 1781 by the Patent of Toleration under Joseph II of Austria, Roman Catholicism was the only religion allowed (on penalty of death) in the territories now forming Belgium. However, a small number of Protestant groups managed to survive, at Maria-Horebeke, Dour, Tournai, Eupen and Hodimont.

Religion was one of the differences between the almost solidly Roman Catholic south and the predominantly Protestant north of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, formed in 1815. The union broke up in 1830 when the south seceded to form the Kingdom of Belgium. Roman Catholicism in Belgium's first century was socially such a binding factor that it prevailed over the important difference in languages (Dutch versus French). The loss in importance of religion as a social marker across late 20th century Western Europe, explains to a large extent the current centrifugal forces in Belgium, with language differences (increasingly reinforced by a positive feedback effect on the media) no longer being kept in check by a religious binding factor. If anything, the Catholic Church has acquiesced to these changes by having a Dutch-speaking university (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and a French-speaking university (Universite Catholique de Louvain).

Until the late 20th century, Roman Catholicism played an important role in Belgian politics. One significant example of this are the so-called "school wars" (Dutch: schoolstrijd, French: guerres scolaires) between the philosophically left-wing parties (Liberals first, Liberals and Socialists later) and the Catholic (later Christian Democrat) party, which took place between 1879 and 1884 and later between 1954 and 1958. Another important controversy happened in 1990 when the very religious Catholic monarch, King Baudouin I, refused to officially ratify with his signature an abortion bill that had already been approved by parliament. The king then asked Prime Minister Wilfried Martens and his government to find a solution, which proved novel. The government declared King Baudouin unfit to fulfill his constitutional duties as monarch for one day, while Government ministers signed the bill in his place, and then proceeded to reinstate the king after the abortion law had come into effect.

In 2002, the then officially recognized Protestant denomination, the United Protestant Church of Belgium, itself the result of mergers in 1839, 1969 and 1979 (consisting of around 100 member churches, usually with a Calvinist or Methodist past) and the until then unsubsidized Federal Synod of Protestant and Evangelical churches (600 member churches in 2008, but still not including all evangelical and charismatic groups outside the Catholic tradition) together formed the Administrative Council of the Protestant and Evangelical Religion (ARPEE in Dutch, CACPE in French), which is now the accepted mouthpiece of Protestantism in all three linguistic communities. Based on a 2001 survey conducted by evangelical sources, charismatic and evangelical associations claim a membership of 4% of the Belgian population (a modest percentage of the total population but allegedly a half percentage point more than that of the current Muslim population, as tallied by non-religious sources).