page_title: Lutheranism by region
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Lutheranism by region / Europe / Germany
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kirche zum Heiligen Kreuz in Berlin-Wilmersdorf nach dem Umbau des Eingangsbereichs.
context_page_description: Lutheranism is present on all inhabited continents with an estimated 80 million adherents, out of which 74.2 million are affiliated with the Lutheran World Federation. A major movement that first began the Reformation, it constitutes one of the largest Protestant branches claiming around 80 million out of 920 million Protestants. The Lutheran World Federation brings together the vast majority of Lutherans. Apart from it, there are also other organisations such as the International Lutheran Council and the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, as well as multiple independent Lutheran denominations.
  Today, almost half of Lutherans are living in Europe. Germany accounts for one-third of European Lutherans and one-eighth of the world's Lutheran population. Most of the remaining European Lutherans are confined to the Nordic countries and the Netherlands. United States accounts for one-eighth of the world's Lutheran population, but only around 4 million of them are members in the Lutheran World Federation. It has most Lutherans in North America. Ethiopia and Tanzania have the largest Lutheran populations in Africa, while Indonesia and India—in Asia.
context_section_description: The Lutheran faith was first established in some states of the Holy Roman Empire then and  now located within Germany. After the Thirty Years' War ended in 1648, the Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic churches were recognised as independent churches. The ruler of each principality was given the right to choose one of these three denominations to become the state church of his principality (Cuius regio, eius religio). Some German states (especially in the north and east) became Lutheran (e.g. Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, Saxony, Baden), some became Reformed (Bentheim, Bremen, Lippe), while others remained Catholic (e.g. Bavaria and areas along the Rhine). Some states saw unions of Reformed and Lutherans to a united confession, such as Anhalt (1820 in Anhalt-Bernburg, 1827 in Anhalt-Dessau, and 1880 in Anhalt-Köthen), Baden (1821), Nassau (1817) and the Bavarian Palatinate (1848), while Prussia introduced an administrative-only Union of Lutheran and Reformed churches in 1817, followed by the also administrative-only Hanau Union of churches in Hesse-Cassel (1818) and a united administration for Lutheran, Reformed and Protestant union congregations in Hesse-Darmstadt (1832) and in Bremen (1877).
  The regional Protestant church bodies (traditionally organised mostly along 19th-century state borders, often changed since) accept each other as equals, despite confessional differences. Thus, a Lutheran moving from a parish belonging to a Lutheran regional church body would be accepted by the locally competent congregation within another regional Protestant church body, even if this church body and its local parish are Reformed or of united Protestant confession. This is a concept rather unusual in most other countries. Members of congregations within the regional Protestant church bodies – like those of parishes within Catholic dioceses and those enrolled in Jewish congregations –, are required to pay a church tax, a surcharge on their normal income tax collected by the states of Germany and passed on to the respective religious body.
  Modern mobility and increased secularisation have, however, been instrumental in shifting the traditional demographic situation, as did the movements of several million German refugees from either areas lost to Poland and the Soviet Union, or from abroad, after World War II. Since World War II, the Lutheran, Reformed and United Protestant regional churches have been members of the umbrella Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). Approximately 40% of German Protestants are members of regional church bodies forming the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD), a unit of the EKD comprising all Lutheran regional church bodies in Germany, except of Oldenburg and Württemberg, however, which are only associated. The majority of parishioners belonging to administratively united Protestant church bodies in Germany are also members of parishes which are confessionally Lutheran, however, their membership registries do not differentiate between Lutherans and parishioners of Reformed or united Protestant confession.
  Besides the regional Protestant church bodies in Germany, there also exists the national Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (SELK), which formed from those opposed to the forced Union with Reformed churches in Prussia and elsewhere. The SELK is a member of the International Lutheran Council (ILC). The SELK is separate from the regional church bodies and has 33,474 baptised members as of 2017. The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church (CELC), primarily located in the lands of the former East Germany, has 1,470 baptised members. The German parishioners of the Moravian Church, which is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, are also confessionally counting as Lutherans.
caption: Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Berlin, a congregation belonging to the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church which originated from opposition of Old Lutherans to form the Prussian Union of churches
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