At the end of the year 2011, I posted an article called „Some simple fatcs about Germany“. While doing the research for this article, I discovered some other interesting facts about Germany that I didn´t know before though I´m living here since I was born.

One of them was about religions. For not being very religiös (religious) myself, I normally don´t care much about religious topics. But when I read about the spreading of the different religions, this sounded quite interesting to me.

So, to come to a point, we have countless religions respectively subassembly groups or Abspaltungen (split-offs) of them. The biggest main religion is das Christentum (Christianity). Out of this main religion there are also the most split-offs. Take a look:

– Römisch-katholische Kirche (Roman Catholic Church)
– Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (Protestant Church of Germany)
– Orthodoxes Christentum (Orthodox Christianity)
– Neuapostolische Kirche (New Apostolic Church)
– Zeugen Jehovas (Jehovah´s Witnesses)
– Baptisten (Baptists)
– Mennoniten (Mennonites)
– Selbständige Evangelische-Lutherische Kirche
– Pfingstler
– Siebenten-Tags-Adventisten
– Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
– Altkatholische Kirche
– Christliche Wissenschaft
– Anglikaner (Anglicans)

Beside Christianity we also have Islam, das Judentum (Jewry), Hinduismus (Hinduism) and Buddhismus (Buddhism) in Germany.

Here are some numbers of the strongest religions in Germany:

Die Missionierung (proselytization) took place from the 6th to the 10th century. Whereas Protestant reformation began in the 16th century with Martin Luther (1483-1546). The interesting thing is, before World War 1, approximately 60% of the Bevölkerung (population) in Germany was affected by the Protestant Church. Nowadays, the two main religions have almost the same number of members. The Roman Catholic Church even has a slight Vorsprung (advance).

The orthodox churches came with the immigrants. Most of them were coming from eastern countries like Greek, Serbia, Russia, Bulgaria…

Jehovah`s Witnesses were founded in the USA and exists in Germany since 1903.

Islam has its own Untergruppen (subassembly groups) as well (Sunnites, Shiites, Alevites and even further ones). Most of the people in Germany with an islamic background have turkish roots.

Most of the Jews living in Germany have their origin in Eastern Europe. Nowadays we have approximetaly 200.000 of them in Germany. There are Jewish communities in Germany since the 1st centruy, so this is the oldest Glaubensgemeinschaft (denomination) that we have here.

Well, as far as I can overlook this, almost every religion is somehow represented in Germany. But also a third af the population is konfessionslos (undenominational), that means without a certain religion. In my optinion this makes people diverse and interesting. As long as everybody stays tolerant and respects other persuasions, it is a great way to do so.

Some vocabulary to this post:

religiös – religious
die Abspaltung – split-off
das Christentum – Christianity
die Römisch-katholische Kirche – Roman Catholic Church
die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland – Protestant Church of Germany
das Orthodoxes Christentum – Orthodox Christianity
die Neuapostolische Kirche – New Apostolic Church
die Zeugen Jehovas – Jehovah´s Witnesses
die Baptisten – Baptists
die Mennoniten – Mennonites
die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage – Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
die Anglikaner – Anglicans
das Judentum – Jewry
der Hinduismus – Hinduism
der Buddhismus – Buddhism
die Missionierung –  proselytization
die Bevölkerung – population
der Vorsprung – advance
die Untergruppe – subassembly group
die Glaubensgemeinschaft –  denomination
konfessionslos –  undenominational