Religion in Switzerland

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Switzerland has no country-wide state religion, though most of the cantons (except for Geneva and Neuchâtel) recognize official churches (Landeskirchen), in all cases including the Catholic Church and the Swiss Reformed Church. These churches, and in some cantons also the Old Catholic Church and Jewish congregations, are financed by official taxation of adherents.^[1]

Contents 1 Demographics 2 History 3 Notes 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Demographics

Christianity is the predominant religion of Switzerland, divided between the Roman Catholic Church (41.82% of the population as of 2000) and the Swiss Reformed Church (33.04%). Immigration has brought Islam (4.26%) and Eastern Orthodoxy (1.8%) as sizeable minority religions.^[2]. Other minority communities include various Protestant denominations (totalling 1.94%), Jehovah's Witnesses (0.49%), Hinduism (0.38%), Buddhism (0.29%), the New Apostolic Church (0.26%), Judaism (0.25%) and the Old Catholic Church (0.18%). Various other communities account for 0.31%. 11.11% of the Swiss were irreligious as of 2000, another 4.33% refused to make a statement.

According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2005,^[3]

• 48% of Swiss citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
• 39% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
• 9% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".

The country is historically about evenly balanced between Catholic and Protestant regions. The larger cities (Bern, Zürich, Basel, Geneva) are traditionally Protestant, while Central Switzerland and the Ticino are traditionally Catholic. The Swiss constitution of 1848, under the recent impression of the clashes of Catholic vs. Protestant cantons that culminated in the Sonderbundskrieg, consciously defines a consociational state, allowing the peaceful co-existence of Catholics and Protestants. A 1980 initiative calling for the complete separation of church and state was clearly rejected, with only 21.1% voting in support.

[edit] History

Traces of the pre-Christian religions of the area that is now Switzerland include the Bronze Age "fire dogs". The Gaulish Helvetii, who became part of Gallo-Roman culture under the Roman Empire, and who have left only scarce traces of their religion like the statue of dea Artio, a bear goddess, found near Berne. A known Roman sanctuary to Mercury was on a hill north-east of Baar.^[4] St. Peter in Zürich was the location of a temple to Jupiter.

The Bishopric of Basel was established in AD 346, that of Sion before 381, that of Geneva in ca. 400, that of Vindonissa in 517 (now united as the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg), the Diocese of Chur before 451. Germanic paganism briefly reached Switzerland with the immigration of the Alemanni from the 6th century, who were gradually converted to Christianity in the course of the 6th and 7th centuries, with the Bishopric of Constance established in ca. 585 as the bishop of Vindonissa moved there, the Abbey of St. Gall rising to an important center of learning in the Early Middle Ages.

The Old Swiss Confederacy was Roman Catholic as a matter of course until the Reformation of the 1520s which resulted into a lasting split of the Confederacy into a Protestant and a Catholic part, leading to a number of violent outbreaks in Early Modern times. The secular Helvetic Republic was a brief intermezzo and tensions immediately resurfaced after 1815, leading to the formation of the modern federal state in 1848, which recognizes Landeskirchen on a cantonal basis: the Roman Catholic and the Reformed Churches in each canton, and since the 1870s (following the controversies triggered by the First Vatican Council) the Christian Catholic Church in some cantons.

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• Reformation in Switzerland
• Roman Catholicism in Switzerland
• Islam in Switzerland
• History of the Jews in Switzerland
• Buddhism in Switzerland
• Hinduism in Switzerland
• Demographics of Switzerland
• Religion by country
• Religion in Europe
• No Faith by Country

[edit] External links

• 2000 census results
• Eurel: sociological and legal data on religions in Europe

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