page_title: Newport, Wales
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Newport, Wales / Demography / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: Newport Cathedral
context_page_description: Newport is a city and unitary authority area in Wales, on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, 12 miles northeast of Cardiff. With a population of 145,700 at the 2011 census, Newport is the third largest city in Wales. The city forms part of the Cardiff-Newport metropolitan area, with a population of 1,097,000.
  Newport has been a port since medieval times when the first Newport Castle was built by the Normans. The town outgrew the earlier Roman town of Caerleon, immediately upstream, and gained its first charter in 1314. It grew significantly in the 19th century when its port became the focus of coal exports from the eastern South Wales Valleys. Until the rise of Cardiff from the 1850s, Newport was Wales' largest coal-exporting port. Newport was the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Britain, the Newport Rising of 1839 led by the Chartists. This was led by the Chartist John Frost which led to the re-branding of the Duffryn High School into John Frost School.
  In the 20th century, the docks declined in importance, but Newport remained an important manufacturing and engineering centre. It was granted city status in 2002.
context_section_description: In 1929 St Woolos Church became the Pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Monmouth, becoming a full cathedral in 1949. When Rowan Williams was appointed Archbishop of Wales in 2000, the Cathedral became the Metropolitan Cathedral of Wales.
  In 1850 Newport was recognised as the chief centre of Roman Catholicism in Wales when the town became the seat of the Bishop of Newport and Menevia; however Newport lost its bishop with the creation of the Archdiocese of Cardiff in 1916. Between 21 October 1966 and 6 October 1969, having retired as Bishop of Rochester, New York, Fulton J. Sheen, an American bishop who pioneered preaching on television and radio, was appointed the titular archbishop of Newport by Pope Paul VI.
  In the 2011 census 56.8% of Newport residents considered themselves Christian, 4.7% Muslim, 1.2% Other religions (including Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish and Others), 29.7% were non-religious and 7.5% chose not to answer the non-compulsory religion question on the census.
  Newport has more than 50 churches (including Welsh, Chinese and Urdu speaking services), 7 mosques, and one synagogue; the nearest Gurudwara is in Cardiff.
  The Church in Wales church of St Julius and St Aaron, at St Julian's, was consecrated in 1926.
caption: Newport Cathedral – St Woolos
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