page_title: Religion in Germany
section_title: Reformation, Counter-Reformation and the Thirty Years' War (1517–1648)
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in Germany / History / Reformation, Counter-Reformation and the Thirty Years' War (1517–1648)
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the religious situation in central europe, 1618 Deutsch: Karte der Konfessionen in Mitteleuropa, 1618
context_page_description: Christianity is the largest religion in Germany, and was introduced to the area of modern Germany with the conversion of the first Germanic tribes in the 4th century. The area became fully Christianized by the time of Charlemagne in the 8th and 9th centuries. After the reformation started by Martin Luther during the 16th century, a significant part of the population had a schism with the Catholic Church and became Protestant, mainly Lutherans and Calvinists.
  Nowadays around 55% of the population identifies as Christian, however only 10% of German people say they believe in God as absolutely certain, and 50% say they believe in God as less certain, with about half of those being Catholic, most of them Roman Catholics, stronger in the southern and the western part of the country, half belonging to the Evangelical Church of Germany predominant in the northern regions, and the rest to several small Christian denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Jehovah's Witnesses. Between 5 and 6% are Muslims, while much smaller religions include Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Yazidis.
context_section_description: Roman Catholicism was the sole established religion in the Holy Roman Empire until the advent of the Protestant Reformation changed this drastically.  In the early 16th century abuses (such as selling indulgences in the Catholic Church) occasioned much discontent, and a general desire for reform emerged.  In 1517 the Reformation began with the publication of Martin Luther's 95 Theses detailing 95 assertions which Luther believed showed corruption and misguidance within the Catholic Church.  The Reformation demonstrated Luther's disagreement both with the way in which the higher clergy used and abused power, and with the very idea of a papacy. In 1521 the Diet of Worms outlawed Luther, but the Reformation spread rapidly.  Luther translated the Bible from Latin to German, establishing the basis of the modern German language. A curious fact is that Luther spoke a dialect which had minor importance in the German language of that time. After the publication of his Bible translation, his dialect evolved into what is now standard modern German.
  With the protestation of the Lutheran princes at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529) and rejection of the Lutheran "Augsburg Confession" at the Diet of Augsburg (1530), a separate Lutheran church emerged.
  From 1545 the Counter-Reformation began in Germany. Much of its impetus came from the newly founded (in 1540) Jesuit order. It restored Catholicism to many areas, including Bavaria. The Holy Roman Empire became religiously diverse; for the most part, the states of northern and central Germany became Protestant (chiefly Lutheran, but also Calvinist/Reformed) while the states of southern Germany and the Rhineland largely remained Catholic. In 1547 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V defeated the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Protestant rulers.  The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 brought recognition of the Lutheran faith. But the treaty also stipulated that the religion of a state was to be that of its ruler (cuius regio, eius religio).
  In 1608/1609 the Protestant Union and the Catholic League formed.  The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, played out primarily in German lands, but involved most of the countries of Europe. It was to some extent a religious conflict, involving both Protestants and Catholics.
caption: Religious fragmentation at the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618
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