State religion

A **state religion** (also called an **official religion**, **established church** or **state church**) is a religious group or creed officially accepted by the state.

The term _state church_ is used in context with Christianity, and is sometimes used for a specific national branch of Christianity.

## Christian countries

The following states recognize some form of Christianity as their state or official religion (by denomination):

### Roman Catholic

Jurisdictions which recognize Roman Catholicism as their state or official religion:
- Costa Rica
- Malta
- Monaco
- El Salvador
- Liechtenstein
- Vatican City (Theocracy)
- Some cantons of Switzerland (state religion):
    - Appenzell Innerrhoden (declared "religion of the people of Appenzell Innerrhoden")
    - Aargau
    - Basel-Country
    - Bern
    - Glarus
    - Graubünden
    - Nidwalden
    - Schwyz
    - Thurgau
    - Uri

#### Old Catholic

Jurisdictions which recognize an Old Catholic church as their state religion:
- Some cantons of Switzerland (Christian Catholic Church):
    - Aargau
    - Basel-Country
    - Bern

### Eastern Orthodox

Jurisdictions which recognize one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches as their state religion:
- Greece (Greek Orthodox Church)

#### Anglican

- England (Church of England) established by law; plus, unestablished, the world-wide Anglican Communion

#### Lutheran

- Denmark (Church of Denmark)
- Iceland (Church of Iceland)
- Finland (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland)

#### Presbyterian

- Scotland (Church of Scotland) established by law
- Scotland assorted Free Presbyterian churches, unestablished.

#### Reformed

Jurisdictions which recognize a Reformed church as their state religion:
- Some cantons of Switzerland (Swiss Reformed Church):
    - Aargau
    - Basel-Country
    - Bern
    - Glarus
    - Graubünden
    - Schwyz
    - Thurgau
    - Uri
    - Zürich

### Other Christian

- Zambia
- Samoa
- Solomon Islands

## Islamic countries

Countries which recognize Islam as their official religion:

### No sect specified

- Afghanistan (State religion)
- Bahrain (State religion)
- Bangladesh (State religion)
- Egypt (State religion)
- Iraq (State religion)
- Jordan (State religion)
- Kuwait (State religion)
- Libya (State religion)
- Maldives (State religion)
- Morocco
- Oman (State religion)
- Pakistan (State religion)
- Qatar (State religion)
- Tunisia
- United Arab Emirates (Religion of the Emirates)
- Yemen

### Sunni Islam

- Algeria (State religion)
- Brunei (Official religion)

- Malaysia (State religion)
- Mauritania (Official religion)
- Saudi Arabia (Religion of the kingdom)
- Somalia (State religion)

### Shi'a Islam

- Iran (Theocracy)

## Buddhist countries

Governments which recognize Buddhism as their official religion:
- Bhutan (Drukpa Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism)
- Cambodia (Theravada Buddhism)
- Kalmykia, a republic within the Russian Federation (Tibetan Buddhism - sole Buddhist entity in Europe)
- Tibet Government in Exile (Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism)
- Sri Lanka (Theravada Buddhism)

## Others

- Israel is defined in several of its laws as a Democratic Jewish state, but has no state or official religion, "Jewish" being treated as a nationality. In other countries the term "Jewish" means either adhering to the Jewish religion (Judaism), or a Jew by descent (inheritance) or both.

### Egypt and Sumer

The concept of state religions was known as long ago as the empires of Egypt and Sumer, when every city state or people had its own god or gods.

### Persian empire

Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the Sassanid dynasty which lasted from 226 until 651.

### Greek city-states

Many of the Greek city-states also had a 'god' or 'goddess' associated with that city.

### Roman Religion and Christianity

When in Rome, the office of _Pontifex Maximus_ was reserved for the emperor, failure to worship him as a god was sometimes punished by death, as the Roman government sought to link emperor worship with loyalty to the Empire. Many Christians and Jews were persecuted, because it was against their beliefs to worship the emperor.

Catholic Christianity, as opposed to Arianism and other heretical and schismatic groups, was declared to be the state religion of the Roman Empire on February 27, 380 by the decree _De Fide Catolica_ of Emperor Theodosius I.

### Han Dynasty Confucianism and Sui Dynasty Buddhism

In China, the Han Dynasty (206 BC—220 AD) advocated Confucianism as the de facto state religion, establishing tests based on Confucian texts as an entrance requirement into government service.

## Established churches and former state churches in Europe

|Country||Church||Denomination||Disestablished|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Albania|none since independence||||||
|Andorra|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|?||||
|Anhalt|Evangelical Church of Anhalt|Lutheran|1918||||
|Armenia|Armenian Apostolic Church|Oriental Orthodox|1921||||
|Austria|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1918||||
|Baden|Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church of Baden|Catholic and Lutheran|1918||||
|Bavaria|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1918||||
|Brunswick-Lüneburg|Evangelical Church of Brunswick|Lutheran|1918||||
|Bulgaria|Bulgarian Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox|1946||||
|Cyprus|Cypriot Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox|1977||||
|Czechoslovakia|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1948||||
|Denmark|Church of Denmark|Lutheran|no||||
|England|Church of England|Anglican|no||||
|Estonia|Church of Estonia|Lutheran|1940||||
|Finland|Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland|Lutheran|1870/1919||||
|France|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1905||||
|Georgia|Georgian Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox|1921||||
|Greece|Greek Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox|no||||
|Hesse|Evangelical Church of Hesse and Nassau|Lutheran|1918||||
|Hungary|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1848||||
|Iceland|Lutheran Evangelical Church|Lutheran|no||||
|Ireland|Church of Ireland|Anglican|1869||||
|Italy|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1984||||
|Liechtenstein|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|||||
|Lippe|Church of Lippe|Reformed|1918||||
|Lithuania|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1940||||
|Lübeck|North Elbian Evangelical Church|Lutheran|1918||||
|Luxembourg|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|||||
|Republic of Macedonia|Macedonian Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox|1797||||
|Malta|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|no||||
|Mecklenburg|Evangelical Church of Mecklenburg|Lutheran|1918||||
|Monaco|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|?||||
|Netherlands|Dutch Reformed Church|Reformed|1795||||
|Norway|Church of Norway|Lutheran|2012||||
|Oldenburg|Evangelical Church of Oldenburg|Lutheran|1918||||
|Paraguay|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1967||||
|Poland|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1918||||
|Portugal|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1976||||
|Prussia|13 provincial churches|Lutheran|1918||||
|Romania|Romanian Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox|1947||||
|Russia|Russian Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox|1917||||
|Thuringia|Evangelical Church in Thuringia|Lutheran|1918||||
|Saxony|Evangelical Church of Saxony|Lutheran|1918||||
|Schaumburg-Lippe|Evangelical Church of Schaumburg-Lippe|Lutheran|1918||||
|Scotland|Church of Scotland|Presbyterian|no||||
|Serbia and Montenegro|Serbian Orthodox Church|Eastern|||||
|Spain|Roman Catholic Church|Catholic|1978||||
|Sweden|Church of Sweden|Lutheran|January 2000||||
|Switzerland|none since the adoption of the Federal Constitution (1848)||||||
|Turkey|Sunni Islam|Hanafi|1928||||
|Waldeck|Evangelical Church of the Hesse Electorate and Waldeck|Lutheran|1918||||
|Wales|Church in Wales|Anglican|1920||||
|Württemberg|Evangelical Church of Württemberg|Lutheran|1918||||

In 1967, the Albanian government made atheism the "state religion". This designation remained in effect until 1991.

Finland's State Church was the Church of Sweden until 1809.

In France the Concordat of 1801 made the Roman Catholic, Calvinist and Lutheran churches state-sponsored religions, as well as Judaism.

In Hungary the constitutional laws of 1848 declared five established churches on equal status: the Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox and Unitarian Church. In 1868 the law was ratified again after the Ausgleich. In 1895 Judaism was also recognized as the sixth established church. In 1948 every distinction between the different denominations were abolished.

The Church in Wales was split from the Church of England in 1920 by Welsh Church Act 1914; at the same time becoming disestablished.

### Protestant colonies

- Plymouth Colony was founded by Separatists.
- Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was founded by Baptists.
- Province of Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers.

### Catholic colonies

- When New France was transferred to Great Britain in 1763, the Roman Catholic Church remained under toleration, but Huguenots were allowed entrance where they had formerly been banned from settlement by Parisian authorities.
- Province of Maryland was founded by Irish Catholics in a state known as recusancy, but was stripped of this independence during the English Civil War by Roundheads—much as it was in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
- Spanish Florida was ceded to the Great Britain in 1763, the British divided Florida into two colonies. Both East and West Florida continued a policy of toleration for the Catholic Residents.

|Colony||Denomination||Disestablished|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Connecticut|Congregational|1818|||
|Georgia|Church of England|1789|||
|Massachusetts|Congregational|1780|||
|New Brunswick|Church of England||||
|New Hampshire|Congregational|1790|||
|Newfoundland|Church of England||||
|North Carolina|Church of England|1776|||
|Nova Scotia|Church of England|1850|||
|Prince Edward Island|Church of England||||
|South Carolina|Church of England|1790|||
|Upper Canada|Church of England|1854|||
|West Florida|Church of England|N/A|||
|East Florida|Church of England|N/A|||
|Virginia|Church of England|1786|||
|West Indies|Church of England|1868|||

In several colonies, the establishment ceased to exist in practice at the Revolution, about 1776; this is the date of legal abolition.

in 1789 the Georgia Constitution was amended as follows:
"Article IV. Section 10. No person within this state shall, upon any pretense, be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping God in any manner agreeable to his own conscience, nor be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rate, for the building or repairing any place of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right, or hath voluntarily engaged. To do. No one religious society shall ever be established in this state, in preference to another; nor shall any person be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles."

From 1780 Massachusetts had a system which required every man to belong to a church, and permitted each church to tax its members, and did not require that it be a Congregational church. This was objected to, as in practice establishing the Congregational Church, and was abolished in 1833.

Until 1877 the New Hampshire Constitution required members of the State legislature to be of the Protestant religion.

The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 disestablished the Anglican church, but until 1835 the NC Constitution allowed only Protestants to hold public office. From 1835 to 1876 it allowed allowed only Christians (including Catholics) to hold public office. Article VI, Section 8 of the current NC Constitution forbids only atheists from holding public office. Such clauses were held by the United States Supreme Court to be unenforceable in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, when the court ruled unanimously that such clauses constituted a religious test incompatible with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.

Religious Tolerance for Catholics with an Established Church of England were policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida while under British rule. East Florida was lost to Spain in 1781.

Religious tolerance for Catholics with an established Church of England were policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida while under British rule. East Florida was returned to Spain in 1783.

## State of Deseret

The State of Deseret was a provisional state of the United States, proposed in 1849 by Mormon settlers in Salt Lake City. The provisional state existed for slightly over two years.

## Related pages

- Secular state
- Theocracy
- Freedom of religion

## References

- https://mysocialbliss.com/encyclopedia-of-religion-communication-and-media/