Religion in the UK

The official religion is Christianity, especially the Anglican denomination, whose head is the monarch of the United Kingdom. Presbyterian is the national church of Scotland. The Baptist, Adventist or Quakerism are also professed, as well as Catholicism (the second most important), Islamism and Judaism forming the largest set. There is freedom of worship, although the constituent countries, such as the regions of Northern Ireland and Wales, declare themselves confessional or secular states. Since the Elizabethan era, the Anglican or Orthodox Church has been proclaimed.

Although religion in the United Kingdom is a personal right and there is free exercise of worship, the Anglican Church is legally recognized as the official religion of the State. The majority of the population is Christian, around 60%, and is made up mostly of members of the Roman Apostolic Church and the Anglican Church.

In turn, religion in the United Kingdom also includes cults such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism. About 23% of the population does not practice any religion. Also, an important religion in the United Kingdom is Islam, since one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe is found there.

In Scotland, there are more than two million members of the Presbyterian Church, recognized as the official church of Scotland, and in Northern Ireland, the majority of the population is divided into Catholics and Protestants. In Wales, on the other hand, there is no officially established church, since the overthrow of the Anglican Church in 1920, but the most popular are Methodist and Baptist.

• Christianity
  • Anglican Communion
    • Church of England
    • Scottish Episcopal Church
    • Church of Wales
    • Church of Ireland
    • Anglican Diocese of British Territories in the Antilles or Islands of the Caribbean Sea (England Church)
    • Falkland Islands Parish (Church of England)
    • South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Parish (Germany of England)
    • Parish of Acrotiri and Dhekelia (Church of England)
    • Parish of the Pitcairn Islands (Church of England)
    • Gibraltar Parish (English)
    • British Antarctic Territory Parish (England Church)
    • British Indian Ocean Territory Parish (England)
  • Catholic Church in the United Kingdom-Catholic Church
    • Catholic Church in England and Wales
  • Presbyterianism
    • World Communion of Reformed Churches
      • Church of Scotland
      • Presbyterian Church in Ireland
      • Presbyterian Church of Wales
      • Reformed Church united
      • Union of Independent Wales
    • Free Church of Scotland
  • Other Christian branches (less than 1% of all Christians in the UK)
    • Methodist Church
    • Baptist Union of Great Britain
    • Religious Society of Friends
    • Seventh-day Adventist Church
    • Jehovah ' s Witnesses
    • Movement of Latter-Day Saints
• Buddhism
• Hinduism
• Judaism
• Islam
• Sikhism
• Other religions
• Irreligion

Surveys

Statistics for current religion (not religion of birth, which was also queried) from the UK Census 2011 and statistics for the 2001 Census are in the table below.

Percentage of respondents in the 2011 census in the UK who said they were Christian.

Christianity

The United Kingdom was formed by the union of previously independent states in 1707, and consequently most of the larger religious groups do not have UK-wide organizational structures. While some groups have separate structures for the individual countries of the UK, others have a single structure that covers England and Wales or Great Britain. Similarly, due to the relatively recent creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, most of the major religious groups in Northern Ireland are organized throughout Ireland.

Anglicanism

The Church of England is the established church in England. Its most senior bishops sit in the national parliament and the Queen is its supreme governor. It is also the "mother church" of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Church of England split from the Catholic Church in 1534 and became the church established by an Act of Parliament in the Act of Supremacy beginning a series of events known as the English Reformation.

Historically it has been the predominant Christian denomination in England and Wales, in terms of influence and number of adherents.

The Episcopal Church of Scotland, which is part of the Anglican Communion (but not a 'daughter church' of the Church of England), dates to the final establishment of Praetorianism in Scotland in 1690, when it broke away of the Church of Scotland. In the 1920s, the Church in Wales disestablished itself and became independent from the Church of England, but remains in the Anglican Communion.

During the years 2012 to 2014, membership in the Church of England fell by around 1.7 million.

Catholicism

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool

Westminster Cathedral, London, England.

The Catholic Church has separate national organizations for England, Wales and Scotland, meaning there is no single hierarchy for the Catholic Church in the UK. Catholicism is the second largest denomination in England and Wales, with around five million members, mainly in England. However, there is only one Papal Nuncio to Great Britain today, Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams. Catholicism is also the second largest Christian denomination in Scotland, accounting for one fifth of the population. The Papal Nuncio to all of Ireland (both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) is Jude Thaddeus Okolo. Eastern-rite Catholics in the United Kingdom are cared for by their own clergy and do not belong to the dioceses of the Latin Church, while also being in full communion with the Bishop of Rome.

In large parts of Northern Ireland, Catholicism is the dominant religion. Also in some Scottish council areas, Catholics outnumber other religions, even in the most populous: Catholics outnumber members of the Church of Scotland in the city of Glasgow (27% versus 23%). Other council areas where Catholics outnumber members of the Church of Scotland are North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire, according to the 2011 Census of Scotland

In 2011, in total there were approximately 5.7 million Catholics in the UK; 4,155,100 in England and Wales (10%),9 841,053 in Scotland (15.9%),1011 and 738,033 in Northern Ireland (45.76%).

Islamic

Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking is the oldest purpose-built mosque in the United Kingdom.

Estimates in 2009 suggested a total of about 2.4 million Muslims in the whole of the UK. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the number of Muslims in Britain could be as high as 3 million. The vast majority of Muslims in the UK live in England and Wales: of 1,591,126 Muslims recorded in the 2001 Census, 1,546,626 lived in England and Wales, where they form 3 percent of the population; 42,557 lived in Scotland, forming 0.8 per cent of the population; and 1,943 lived in Northern Ireland. Between 2001 and 2009, the Muslim population increased approximately 10 times faster than the rest of society