stumbleupon Email Comment They certainly have come a long way from their small hometown in the Middle-East. Numbering 2.2 billion people worldwide, Christians make up the world’s largest religion by a margin of one billion, and the religion is still growing apace. Catholicism alone can boast almost as many adherents as there are people in China. Under the Christian umbrella, there are at least as many denominations as there are fish in the sea; this Middle-Eastern born faith is unrivalled in its predominance worldwide with three major continents, plus half of Africa reporting Christian majorities. Europe, which in the not too distant Medieval past went by the name Christendom, claims the majority of the world’s adherents to the faith, with 26% of all Christians hailing from the cradle of Western Civilisation. Conversely, the birthplace of Christianity (not to mention Judaism and Islam), the Middle-East, can boast no more than 0.6% of the earth’s Christians, a mere 12.7 million dispersed over the Middle-Eastern nations. That Christianity does better away from home is nothing new. Since the Middle Ages about two thirds of the planet’s Christians lived in continental Europe.

By 1910, Christianity may have penetrated North and South America and a good chunk of Africa, but still 2 out of 3 Christians lived in historical ‘Christendom’. The figures you’re about to read (produced by the Pew Research Centre in 2012) belie the fact that something has been – and is – changing in the global distribution of Christians. Christianity is on the move. Since 1910, the world has changed. Super powers have come and gone, populations have boomed in America, Africa and Asia and declined significantly in Europe. Today Europe can still claim to have the most Christians, spread out over the continent, with over 558.2 million adherents to the faith residing in European nations. Yet, the continent can no longer claim to be the global centre of the faith – not with South America boasting 531.3 Christians, and their neighbours to the North claiming as many as 266.6 million. In fact, of the largest national Christian populations in the world, Europe is represented by only one country. Find out which as we set out to trace the largest Christian populations on Earth. 10.

Ethiopia – 52.07 million The smallest population on our Christian list is also the closest to the faith’s birthplace in the Middle East. Ethiopia has been Christian longer than any other country on this list, having adopted Christianity as a state religion as early as the 4th Century AD. Today 62.8% of the population identify as Christian, that is 52,07,000 adherents to the faith of a total population of 82,950,000. Of course this isn’t Ethiopia’s only claim to fame. Leading geneticists agree that this sub-Saharan nation is likely the oldest land of human habitation, the bridgehead from which humans spread across the world. If we look at things that way, then; Ethiopia may host 2.4% of the earth’s Christians, but 100% of the world’s Christians come from Ethiopia! 9.

Germany – 56.54 million No surprises here: The powerhouse of Europe, and the former seat of the Holy Roman Emperor (not to be confused with the slightly less holy pre-Christian emperors of Rome), Germany has been Christian almost as long as it’s been German, today contributing 56,540,000 million Christians to the world total, equivalent to 2.6%. For a long time Germany was also the physical arm of the Catholic Church – ever since the forefather of Germany, Charlemagne, was crowned Emperor of Rome in the 9th Century. The relationship between Germany and the Catholic Church has soured slightly in latter years though; maybe because one of their emperors managed to drown on his way to a crusade, or maybe because another was excommunicated. Whatever the reason, in the 16th Century Germany hosted a little thing called the Reformation, changing the face of Christianity forever. While the Germans may have branched out they still stayed in the realm of the Christian faith, and today 68.7% of the country’s population are still Christians, speaking to – if nothing else – their consistency. 8.

Democratic Republic of the Congo – 63.21 million The second largest country in Africa, The Democratic Republic of Congo is also home to Africa’s second largest Christian population, with over 95% of its people identifying as such. Of its 63,210,000 Christians, about half are Catholic, and indeed the Catholic Church, administrator of many of the schools and hospitals in the Congo, has been called the only national institution in the country. The nation’s faith is possibly a legacy from the Congo’s time spent as a colony of Belgium, another of which is the French language. French is the official language of the Congo, spoken as a first or second language by at least a third of the population, making it both the largest Francophone nation and the second largest population of French speakers in the world. Making up 2.9% of the world’s Christians, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the 8th most Christian nation in the world today. 7.

China – 68.41 million The largest total population on earth and one of the top 5 largest countries in the world by land area, perhaps China was always going to make this list – even though over half of its population do not identify with any religion. The largest religion in China is composed of a number of Folk faiths that predate the introduction of Christianity to China. Although just 5.1% of China’s population of 1,341,340,000 are Christian, China has the world’s seventh largest Christian population. The 68,410,000 Chinese Christians make up 3.1% of adherents to the faith worldwide. 6. Nigeria – 78.05 million Nigeria boasts the largest Christian population in Africa. The introduction of Christianity to Nigeria – and indeed much of Africa – during the 19th Century forms the major subject matter of Nigeria’s (and perhaps Africa’s) most famous novel worldwide; Chinua Achebe’s The Second Coming. While the events of that novel don’t exactly put the brightest spin on the introduction of the Christian faith to Nigeria, this doesn’t seem to have slowed its growth there in the least.

49.3% of all Nigerians – about 78,050,000 people – identify as Christian, 3.6% of the world total. Nigeria is Africa’s largest nation by population, and it might be the only nation to identify with the Irish holiday of Saint Patrick’s day: Nigerian Christians can claim a link to Irish Christians, as they share a Patron saint in the person of none other than St. Patrick himself. 5. The Philippines – 86.37 million Comprising 4% of the world’s Christians, there are 86,370,000 members of the Christian faith spread across the Philippine’s 7,107 islands making the Philippines Asia’s largest Christian country. The seventh most populous nation in Asia with a total population of 93,260,000, The Philippines get their name from the Spanish King Philip, who established a colony, and a religion, there in the mid-15th Century, a religion that must have caught on, with over 92% of its people identifying as Christian. Perhaps in the spirit of their colonizer, most of them are Catholic. 4.

Russia – 107.5 million The largest country in the world, taking a whole eight of the planet’s space into its boundaries, Russia straddles continents, making it, in some sense, the largest Christian country both in Asia and Europe. Out of its population of 142,960,000, 73.3% are Christian, showing that winter might have slowed down the armies of Napoleon and Germany but not that of the Christian missionaries. Unique to this list most of Russia’s 104,750,000 Christians are members of the Orthodox tradition, making them the largest population of Orthodox Christians in the world and the only Orthodox population to make it on our 10 Largest Christian populations list, contributing 4.8% of the World’s Christians. 3. Mexico – 107.91 million Although Mexico’s first brush with Christianity during the tyranny of the Conquistadores will hardly be remembered as an example of international compassion, nevertheless this former colony of Spain, much like the Philippines, now makes up a substantial part of the world’s Christian population. A whole 5% of all Christians live in Mexico.

These 107,910,000 adherents are overwhelmingly Catholic, in the tradition of their colonizer. They also make up the largest population of Spanish speakers in the world, no doubt contributing to the association of Hispanic peoples in North America with Catholicism. Mexico has the third most Christians in the Americas, as well as the third most Christians in the world, highlighting a recent trend in the distribution of Christians worldwide. 2. Brazil –173.3 million Brazil is not only the largest country in South America, it is also home of the world’s largest population of Catholics, and the second largest Christian country in the world, with over 173,300,000 members of the faith. A Catholic haven, this country illustrates better than any the shift of Catholicism from its traditional home in Italy, a fact attested to by the fact that the newest pope is a native of Argentina, making Pope Francis the first South American pope, attesting to Catholicism’s great migration.

Brazil, an international power and a founding member of BRIC, is the perfect example of this shift to the Americas, with over 88.9% of its population identifying as Christian, making up a whole 8% of the world’s Christian population. 1. USA – 243.06 million Was there ever any doubt? With 243,060,000 adherents across fifty states, the United States of America is home to the world’s biggest population of Christians, making up 11.2% of the world’s total. Which should come as no surprise considering its history. Back when the states were first been carved out by English landowners, many were founded to act as Christian havens. Pennsylvania was to be a sanctuary to threatened denominations such as the Anabaptists, who survive today in the form of the Amish communities of the US. Similarly Maryland, named after Mary Tudor of England, was a nice place for the British to send their excess Catholics, while almost the entire east bay became the home of Puritan protestants, seeking a new holy land away from the Catholic powers of Europe.

Today, a smaller percentage of Americans are Christian than in the 19th Century – only 78.3% of the entire country – but considering that that the U.S. population exceeds 310,380,000 people, that’s still an enormous number of Christians. 17 Countries Where Christians Are Persecuted - Resources - Eternal Perspective Ministries 17 Countries Where Christians Are Persecuted Topics 17 Countries Where Christians Are Persecuted By Randy Alcorn | December 18, 2009 I've edited this based on information from The Bible League, Operation World and other sources. It's intended to help us pray more intelligently for our brothers and sisters. Christians are persecuted in a number of other countries not mentioned here. All suffering believers around the world are in need of our prayers. See the World Watch List from Open Doors USA to see the top 50 persecuted countries for the current year. CAMBODIA: Persecution in Cambodia reached its most terrifying pitch in the 1970s, at the hand of Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge. People of all faiths tempted fate and invited elimination. Cambodian Christians learned to make themselves invisible.

Today, still, Christians are afraid to take leadership positions or to share their faith publicly. Pol Pot is dead, but the fear he incited lives on. Cambodia's government espouses religious freedom, but Christians still face persecution. CHINA: According to news reports, Christians continue to be arrested for printing and distributing illegal Bibles. A house church member died after being beaten in prison. Xu Yongze, a 58-year-old Christian, was tortured during interrogation throughout a three-year labor sentence. Stories like this are common in China, where persecution has increased church growth rather than discourage it. Christians in China share the Gospel despite the great cost. "Our church planter training seminars teach, in addition to basic church planting skills, these three things: (1) Never turn down an invitation to preach; (2) Look for a place to run when you are finished preaching; (3) Be ready to die that day." An Amnesty International report confirms the use of torture in China is "widespread and systematic." China officials continue to deny these findings. Many Westerners, including Christians, have been taken in by the government's persistent propaganda efforts, including using registered churches and legal Bibles to prove (i.e.

give the illusion of) overall religious liberties. COLOMBIA: Congregations are kidnapped, pastors are killed, the church is not allowed to do its work. These are everyday occurrences in Colombia. The ongoing war between the government, the para-military groups, and the guerrillas makes ministry very difficult and very dangerous. Christians, who offer assistance to all, are often in conflict with all. CUBA: While a Christian pastor and his wife were traveling, the police broke into their home and threw their belongings out into the street. The family was not allowed to re-enter their home. It was confiscated, apparently because it had been used for Christian gatherings. In spite of the repercussions, it is increasingly common for Cuban Christians to gather as house churches. (Petroleum is no longer available in the country, so they cannot drive to traditional churches.) The government does not fully accept these new house churches. The church is exploding in growth, and Protestant Christians could number in the millions in a few years. Without Scriptures, though, Christians will not have the comfort they need to face persecution, or confidence to stand strong in the faith. Various missions groups are now making unprecedented inroads into Cuba.

EGYPT: Known as the most open Muslim country because it has legal churches. Persecution comes in social and economic forms, but is sometimes more dramatic. Muslims in Al-Kosheh accused Christians of poisoning the water supply and planning to attack Muslim neighborhoods. A small group of believers responded vocally, and a heated argument erupted. At the end of three days of rioting and violence, 21 Christians were dead. INDIA: The mutilated body of 52-year-old Yesu Dasu was found in a pool of blood in a cattle shed near Kothakunta. His hands had been tied, and his head had been chopped off with an axe. Villagers said that Yesu Dasu was popular as a Christian preacher. He also worked among the lepers as a non-medical assistant. His family—wife, three daughters, and son—said that two people on a motorcycle rode up to their house one evening and took Yesu Dasu away. When he had not returned home by 10:00pm, the family began searching for him in the village. The next morning his body was found on the outskirts of the village.

The government of India does not officially persecute Christians, but it has created an environment in which attacks like this can happen with impunity. Radical Hindus have been emboldened to beat believers, destroy church buildings, burn Bibles, and carry out other atrocities (including the 1999 murder of missionary Graham Staines and his sons). Even so, courageous Indian Christians continue to lead Bible studies and disciple seekers. INDONESIA: The largest Muslim population in the world. There is great openness to the Gospel in spite of persecution—the church is growing at a rate of 5% per year. There are more than 25 million Christians in Indonesia, and more than 13 million of them are without a Bible. As more and more seekers convert, the church grows, and the Bible gap only widens. Christians are threatened and their churches are bombed. Throughout many parts of the country, thousands of Christians have been force to undergo Muslim conversion rituals. Those who refuse to embrace Islam are often beheaded, and their heads are paraded through the village to strike fear into the hearts of other Christians. LAOS: The government of Laos set a goal of completely eradicating Christianity from the country by the end of 2000.

In a September interview, a Laotian Christian said, "They've drawn up plans to eliminate the Christians: first by forcing them to sign a document rescinding their faith, then to close meeting places, and finally to check that they make offerings to the Buddhist priests." MALAYSIA: Today Malaysia is 51% Muslim and extremely resistant to any other religions. In fact, a new law is being proposed that would make converting from Islam an offense punishable by three years in prison. The few hundred Malay who believe in Jesus Christ have suffered social ostracism and the loss of legal rights, jobs, and sometimes home and country. Sadly, due to the economic and political injustices they have suffered, most Malay Christians do not have a heart for sharing the Gospel in their country. Evangelism, discipleship, and church planting are very difficult to encourage. MEXICO: There is a small evangelical church in Ixmiquilpan's San Nicolas suburb. The town cemetery, though, is open only to Catholics. Mexican law requires burial within 24 hours of death. This means evangelical Christians in San Nicolas, most of whom are poor, must pay to transport their dead to other towns with cemeteries that do not discriminate.

Throughout Mexico, but especially in small villages, Catholic churches tend to mix Catholicism and Mayan pagan beliefs. They oppose Christianity's attempts to undermine their "traditional culture." In the past 30 years, at least 30,000 Christians have been expelled from their homes in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas. Others have been fined, jailed, or beaten. MYANMAR: The government of Myanmar (Burma) does not allow churches to be built and has declared house churches illegal. It's not uncommon for Christians to be "recruited" by local officials to do hard labor, particularly on Sundays because it's the Christian day of worship. But God's Church is growing! NIGERIA: Two Christians in northern Nigeria were publicly "caned" by Muslim extremists who said they were enforcing Islamic legal code. The flogging didn't stop until "they thought we were dead," a victim said. Nigerian Christians are not safe in the northern half of the country, where Muslims dominate government affairs. Many Christians have fled to the south, where the Muslim presence is active, but less aggressive. During a recent riot in Gombe city, in the north, four people died, and two churches were vandalized and robbed.

Fifteen pews were torn out of Bishara Baptist Church and burned as thousands of Muslim youths looked on. In spite of (or perhaps because of?) the rising tide of aggression, the Christian Church is growing. People are curious about a Book whose beliefs some are willing to die defending. NORTH KOREA: Despite brutal oppression, around half a million of North Korea's 23 million inhabitants are Christians. More than 1000,000 North Korean Christians are imprisoned in concentration camps, sometimes without food, shelter, or medical aid. Anyone discovered with a Bible is considered to be a "South Korean spy" and is executed, said a South Korean pastor speaking at a missions conference. PHILIPPINES: In the remote village of Bumbaran, Christians were rounded up by a group of Muslim terrorists. They were shot at point-blank range. Twenty-one people died, and eight were seriously injured. On Basilan island, a group of teachers and schoolchildren were held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf extremist group. For their release, the extremists demanded that crosses be removed from public places, that Christian values not be taught in schools, and that Mindanao be declared a Muslim state.

Twenty-four Muslim hostages were released within three weeks, but 29 Christians remained in captivity. Several weeks later, four were killed when they attempted escape. Although the Philippines has no official religion, pockets of the country are dominated by Muslims, and life for Christians in those areas is dangerous. RUSSIA: The world's largest country, spanning 11 time zones. The government is working on reform and eradication of corruption. The Russian mafia continues to be a strong force. "I have suffered terribly over 32 years for my faith in the Lord Jesus," says Alexei Rogovoy, a citizen of Russia. Recently, says Alexei, he was "so badly beaten about the head by the police that now I cannot walk properly. They left me lying in the street, bleeding." Alexei's crime? He had written to a judge about the way Christians were being treated by the authorities. Alexei lives in Volgograd, where the government authorities make life hard for Christians. Elsewhere in Russia Christians are also persecuted by Muslims, the Orthodox Church, and Buddhists. SUDAN: Sudan's government is trying to force the conversion of millions of Christians to Islam. Thirty years of civil war have resulted in famine and large numbers of refugees.

Slave raids, massacres, rapes, and torture continue unabated throughout the south. Sudan is one of the world's worst religious persecutors," says Paul Marshall in Religious Freedom in the World. "It practices forced conversion, represses those who do not subscribe to its version of Islam, has applied shari'a law to the entire population, enslaves its opponents, and is engaged in a war thatÉobservers have explicitly labeled Ôgenocidal.'" The Bible League's National Director says, "The positive thing of the war is that many, many people are coming to Christ. We try to show the love of God through the Word of God. They are very thankful people." VIETNAM: In 1975 Vietnam became a communist nation with a total population of over 77 million. Religion was seen as a threat to national security, and massive "re-education" campaigns were set in motion. The government is finding it more effective to fine Christians than to imprison them. A pastor in Vietnam recently reported that Christians there are "always under persecution." Pastors and believers are being imprisoned regularly.

Back in November 2000, on the very day that President Clinton met with officials to discuss freedom of religion, police raided a worship service across the city, arrested the pastor, confiscated Bibles, and threatened the worshippers. "The oppressive and anti-religion policies have been carried out ruthlessly and persistently by the Vietnamese government for almost 50 years." Rev. John Tran Cong Nghi testified before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. "Many clergy and faithful suffer for years in concentration camps for just living out their faith." Vietnamese law does grant religious freedom, but the list of punishable offenses can be interpreted broadly, and punishments are applied according to the whim of local authorities. This uncertain and restrictive atmosphere makes ministry difficult. Randy Alcorn ( @randyalcorn ) is the author of over fifty books and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries . Share Regional Distribution of Christians | Pew Research Center Regional Distribution of Christians Quiz This report divides the world into five regions to take a closer look at the geographic distribution of Christians.

(To view all the countries in each region, see the Interactive Maps .) The five regions are presented in descending order of Christian population, with the region with the highest number of Christians (the Americas) appearing first and the region with the lowest number of Christians (the Middle East-North Africa) appearing last. Americas (51 COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES) Christians living in the Americas make up 37% of Christians worldwide. 8 The three countries in the Americas with the largest Christian populations also have the three largest Christian populations in the world: the United States (247 million Christians), Brazil (176 million) and Mexico (108 million). The 10 countries in the Americas with the largest number of Christians collectively are home to a third (33%) of all the world’s Christians. Nearly two-thirds of Christians in the Americas (65%) are Catholic. Protestants make up a third of all Christians (33%) in the region. About 2% of the region’s Christians fall into the other Christian category, and less than 1% are Orthodox Christians.

Spotlight on Brazil More than 175 million Brazilians are Christian, making the country’s Christian population the largest outside the United States. By way of comparison, Brazil has more than twice as many Christians as Nigeria and about three times as many as Germany. Indeed, nearly one-in-twelve Christians in the world (8%) are Brazilian, and an overwhelming majority of Brazilians (90%) identify themselves as Christian. Since the Portuguese conquest of Brazil in the 16th century, the country has been overwhelmingly Catholic. In 1950, almost 94% of Brazilians identified with Catholicism; as recently as 1980, Catholic affiliation approached 90%. Between 1980 and 2000, however, the Catholic share of Brazil’s population fell by 15 percentage points to 74%. 1 Despite the decline, Brazil’s Catholic population of about 134 million remains by far the largest in the world. (Mexico’s Catholic population is a distant second at 96 million.) About one-in-eight Catholics worldwide (12%) are Brazilian. Catholicism’s historical dominance in Brazil has given way to increasing Christian diversity.

In 1940, only 2.6% of Brazil’s population was Protestant. 2 Now about 21% of the population is Protestant. This fastgrowing Protestant community is overwhelmingly pentecostal; according to a 2006 Pew Forum survey, 72% of Protestants interviewed indicated they were pentecostal. 3 (For more details on pentecostals, see Defining Christian Movements .) Pentecostal beliefs and practices also are changing the way many of Brazil’s Catholics practice their faith. The 2006 Pew Forum survey found that more than half of Brazilian Catholics identify with the charismatic movement, which includes members of non-pentecostal denominations who engage in at least some spiritual practices associated with pentecostalism, such as divine healing and speaking in tongues. 4 (For more details on charismatics, see Defining Christian Movements .) Footnotes: 1 Figures cited in this sidebar are from Brazil’s national decennial census. For more details on religious trends in Brazil, see Luis Lugo, “ Pope to Visit ‘Pentecostalized’ Brazil ,” Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2007.

(return to text) 2 The figure is from Brazil’s national census. See Emilio Willems, Followers of the New Faith; Culture Change and the Rise of Protestantism in Brazil and Chile, Vanderbilt University Press, 1967, pages 66-67. (return to text) 3 Approximately eight-in-ten Protestants interviewed indicated they were either pentecostal or charismatic. Survey results suggest that the Assemblies of God is the single largest pentecostal church, accounting for four-in-ten pentecostals. The survey was based on a probability sample of Brazilian cities and surrounding areas and excluded rural parts of the country. See Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals , 2006. (return to text) 4 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals , 2006. (return to text) Spotlight on the United States The United States is the world’s third most populous country, but it has by far the largest Christian population. With nearly a quarter of a billion Christians, the U.S.

dwarfs even Brazil, which has the world’s second-largest Christian community (more than 175 million). About 80% of the U.S. population identifies as Christian, and U.S. Christians represent 11% of the world’s Christians.Since the birth of the nation in 1776, the vast majority of religious Americans have been Christian. The settlers who colonized the Eastern seaboard between New France in the north and Florida in the south came largely from majority-Protestant Northern Europe, especially England, Scotland, Wales, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Northern Germany. American Christianity went from being dominated by a few established Protestant denominations in the founding era to today’s highly diverse mix, with innumerable Protestant groups, a large Catholic population and significant numbers of Orthodox and other Christians. In 1776, the vast majority of Americans active in a religious body belonged to only a handful of Protestant denominations: Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist and Quaker. By the mid-19th century, however, the picture had changed. The Methodist Church had become by far the largest Protestant denomination by 1850.

And before the end of the 19th century, Roman Catholics — who represented a small portion of the population in 1776 and only 5% in 1850 — became America’s largest single Christian group, although Protestants collectively still greatly outnumbered Catholics. By 1906, the U.S. was home to 14 million Catholics, who represented 17% of the population. 1 Today, fortified by a steady flow of immigrants from mostly Catholic Latin America, Catholics in the U.S. number more than 74 million, about 24% of the U.S. population. The Southern Baptist Convention is now the largest U.S. Protestant denomination. 2 Other factors, too, have diversified America’s religious landscape. Other Christian groups such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, many of which were founded in the United States in the 19th century, have grown dramatically and together number nearly 11 million adherents, or about 3% of the U.S. population. The U.S. is also home to nearly 2 million Orthodox Christians.

Membership in long-established Protestant churches, such as Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Methodists, has declined, while membership in newer evangelical and pentecostal churches has grown. Today, the U.S. has more evangelical Protestants than any other country in the world. At the same time, the proportion of Americans who are Christian has declined in recent years, from well over 90% in 1900 to almost 80% today. This has happened for a variety of reasons, including the growth in “unaffiliated” Americans (atheists, agnostics and those who say they do not have any religion in particular), as well as postwar non-Christian immigration from the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East-North Africa. In addition, a nation whose population was overwhelmingly Protestant a century ago has had, in recent years, a declining Protestant majority (51% in 2007, according to the Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey ).

3 US 1 Historical data in this and the preceding paragraph are drawn from Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, Rutgers University Press, 2005. (return to text) 2 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey , conducted in 2007 and published in 2008. (return to text) 3 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey , conducted in 2007 and published in 2008. (return to text) Europe (50 COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES) Roughly a quarter of the world’s Christians (26%) live in Europe. 9 This makes Europe the region with the second-largest share of the world’s Christians, following the Americas. Russia has the largest absolute number of Christians in Europe (105 million). Despite the Communist government’s attempts to minimize religion in the country for much of the 20th century, more than 70% of Russians are Christian, primarily Orthodox Christian.

10 Russia alone accounts for about 19% of Europe’s Christians and nearly 5% of the world’s Christians. Russia and the other nine countries with the largest number of Christians in Europe (Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Ukraine, Spain, Poland, Romania and Greece) collectively are home to one-in-five (20%) of the world’s Christians. Catholics are the largest Christian group in Europe, accounting for more than four-in-ten European Christians (46%). The second-largest Christian group in Europe is the Orthodox, who make up 35% of European Christians. The overwhelming majority of the world’s Orthodox Christians (76%) reside in Europe. Although the Protestant Reformation began in Europe, today fewer than one-in-five European Christians (18%) are part of the Protestant tradition as broadly defined in this report. (See Defining Christian Traditions .) Spotlight on Germany Germany has about 58 million Christians, making it the country with the largest Christian population in Western Europe and second only to Russia in Europe as a whole. Germany’s Christian population is also the ninth-largest in the world.

More than 70% of the country’s total population is Christian, divided almost evenly between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Lombards and Franks were gradually converted to Roman Catholicism between roughly the 5th and 8th centuries. The formation of the Holy Roman Empire, beginning in the 10th century, served to consolidate Catholic influence across central Europe. The 16th-century Protestant Reformation, launched by the German Augustinian monk Martin Luther, divided the territories of what is now Germany into a predominantly Protestant North and a predominantly Catholic South. This division endures today. (States that belonged to East Germany were predominantly Protestant, but they saw a substantial decline in religious adherence during communist rule.) There are nearly 29 million Protestants in Germany today, accounting for about a third of the overall population, and most are members of the Evangelical Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland). Roman Catholics account for a third of the German population, totaling about 28 million. Germany also is home to more than a million Orthodox Christians and more than 500,000 other Christians.

According to historical estimates, roughly 60% of Germans were Protestant before World War II, and about one-third professed Roman Catholicism. This suggests that the Protestant proportion of the population has declined significantly, whereas the Catholic proportion has remained roughly the same. 1 Muslims represent the largest non-Christian religious group in Germany. Germany’s estimated Muslim population in 2010 was about 4.1 million, or about 5% of the total population. 2 Footnotes: 1 “Germany,” in David B. Barrett, George Thomas Kurian and Todd M. Johnson, editors, World Christian Encyclopedia, Volume 1: The World by Countries: Religionists, Churches, Ministries, Oxford University Press, 2001, page 299. (return to text) 2 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030 , 2011. (return to text) Spotlight on United Kingdom Christians are by far the largest religious group in the United Kingdom, representing more than 70% of its population.

The U.K.’s Christian population of 45 million is the fourth-largest in Europe and the 12th-largest in the world. The majority of Christians in the United Kingdom are Anglicans. (For more information on Anglicans, see Defining Christian Traditions on page 38.) Christianity arrived in the British Isles as early as the 1st century. In the late 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great sent a missionary, Augustine, to convert the Anglo-Saxon peoples of Britain. Augustine became the first archbishop of Canterbury and primate of an officially recognized Church of England, in full communion with the pope. Catholic Christianity had become firmly established in England, Scotland and Wales by the time King Henry VIII declared his supremacy over the English church in 1534. While the eventual result of the English Reformation was that most of the English people came to adhere to Anglicanism, a minority remained loyal Catholics or joined “non-conformist” groups that rejected the official church as insufficiently reformed. 1 Though the United Kingdom’s population remains predominantly Christian, surveys and censuses indicate that a declining share of the population identifies as Christian.

For example, the Annual Population Survey conducted by Britain’s Office of National Statistics found that the proportion of people professing Christianity fell from about 78% in 2004-2005 to about 72% in 2008. 2 Footnotes: 1 “UK of Great Britain & Northern Ireland,” in David B. Barrett, editor, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, AD 1900-2000, Oxford University Press, 1982, pages 699-703. (return to text) 2 Each round of the Annual Population Survey had a sample size of more than 300,000 people. The survey does not include data from Northern Ireland. (return to text) Spotlight on Russia Straddling Europe and Asia, Russia could be considered the most populous Christian-majority country on both continents. But for the purposes of this report, Russia is considered a European nation. Its 105 million Christians constitute the world’s fourth-largest Christian population (and the single largest outside the Americas). About 5% of the world’s Christians live in Russia.

Moreover, Russia is home to the largest autocephalous (or ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox Church in the world, the Russian Orthodox Church. 1 Byzantine monks first introduced Christianity into Russia in the 9th century. Following his baptism in 988, Vladimir I, the prince of Kiev, led his people into Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox Church has remained the largest religious institution in Russia despite monumental changes in the country’s political system, from monarchy, to Soviet communism, to the current parliamentary and presidential system. Today, a little more than 70% of Russia’s population identifies as Orthodox. 2 While Orthodox Christianity is still the dominant religion in Russia, other Christian traditions have grown in recent decades. Outside of the Orthodox Church, Protestants constitute the largest Christian group, with nearly 3 million adherents. A large segment of the Russian population does not identify as Christian, including many who are unaffiliated with any particular religion. According to a 2011 Pew Forum report, Russia has the largest Muslim population in Europe (in absolute numbers). 3 Footnotes: 1 “Orthodox, 1910-2010,” in Todd M. Johnson and Kenneth R.

Ross, editors, Atlas of Global Christianity, Edinburgh University Press, 2009, page 86. (return to text) 2 Harold Berman, “Freedom of Religion in Russia,” in John Witte and Michael Bourdeaux, editors, Proselytism and Orthodoxy in Russia: The New War for Souls, Orbis Books, 1999, page 266. (return to text) 3 The Pew Forum’s January 2011 report, The Future of the Global Muslim Population, found that, as of 2010, there were 16.4 million Muslims in Russia. See Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030 , 2011. (return to text) Sub-Saharan Africa (51 COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES) Sub-Saharan Africa has more than 500 million Christians, which makes it the region with the third-largest number of Christians worldwide. 11 Collectively, the region’s 51 countries and territories are home to nearly a quarter of the world’s Christians (24%).

Together, the 10 countries with the largest number of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa have about one-in-six of the world’s Christians. The majority of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa are Protestant (57%), as broadly defined in this report; this includes members of African Independent Churches and Anglicans. 12 About one-in-three Christians in the region (34%) are Catholic. Orthodox Christians account for about 8% of the region’s Christians, and other Christians make up the remaining 1%. Spotlight on Nigeria Nigeria is sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous country and is home to the region’s largest Christian population. The West African nation has more than 80 million Christians, who account for about half of the country’s total population. There are more Christians in Nigeria than in any single nation in traditionally Christian Western Europe. 1 In fact, Nigeria’s Christian population is nearly the same size as the total population of Germany. Nigeria’s Muslim population is nearly equal to its Christian population; according to the Pew Forum’s 2011 analysis of the global Muslim population, there were about 76 million Muslims in Nigeria in 2010.

2 Because the proportion of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria is a sensitive political issue, the national census has not asked questions about religion since 1963. 3 In 1953, 21.4% of Nigeria’s population was Christian, 45.3% was Muslim and 33.3% belonged to other religions, including African traditional religions. By 1963, the percentage of the population that belonged to other religions had declined by 15 points, nearly matching the 13.1-point increase for Christians. During this same period, the percentage of Muslims increased by less than 2 points. 4 Christians have since increased in number and share to become about half of the population. Nigeria’s large Christian community is diverse. It includes nearly 60 million Protestants (broadly defined), about 20 million Catholics and more than 750,000 other Christians. All of Christianity’s major groups have grown in Nigeria since the 1970s, but the growth of pentecostal churches has been especially dramatic in recent decades.

5 Footnotes: 1 For the purposes of this report, traditionally Christian Western Europe includes the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. (return to text) 2 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030 , 2011. (return to text) 3 Getnet Tamene, “Features of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Clergy,” in Asian and African Studies, Volume 7, Issue 1, 1998, pages 87-104; “Ethiopia,” in David B. Barrett, editor, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, AD 1900-2000, Oxford University Press, 1982, page 284. (return to text) 4 “Ethiopia,” in David B.

Barrett, editor, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, AD 1900-2000, Oxford University Press, 1982, pages 283-284. (return to text) 5 “Ethiopia,” in David B. Barrett, George Thomas Kurian and Todd M. Johnson, editors, World Christian Encyclopedia, Volume 1: The World by Countries: Religionists, Churches, Ministries, Oxford University Press, 2001, page 266. (return to text) 6 “Ethiopia,” in David B. Barrett, editor, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, AD 1900-2000, Oxford University Press, 1982, page 283. (return to text) Asia-Pacific (60 COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES) The Asia-Pacific region includes 13% of the world’s Christians. 13 The region’s largest Christian population in absolute numbers is in the Philippines, a country that is overwhelmingly Christian (93%).

Christians make up a minority of the population in China (5%), India (3%) and Indonesia (9%), but because these countries have very large populations, their Christian minorities are large in number. Collectively, the 10 countries with the largest Christian populations in the region are home to 12% of all Christians worldwide. Slightly less than half of Christians in the Asia-Pacific region (49%) are Protestant, as broadly defined in this report (see Defining Christian Traditions ). Most of the remaining Christians in the region are Catholic (46%), while 4% are Orthodox. About 1% belong to other Christian traditions. Spotlight on China China, the world’s most populous country, is home to the world’s seventh-largest Christian population. (For details on this study’s multi-sourced estimate for China, see Appendix C [PDF] .) In the Asia-Pacific region, only the Philippines has a larger Christian population. Mainland China has roughly 67 million Christians, representing about 5% of the country’s total population. 1 China is home to the world’s largest number of Christians living as a minority.

(See Living as Majorities and Minorities .) As recently as three decades ago, few researchers even within mainland China knew whether religion had survived the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) initiated by Chairman Mao Zedong. It is clear now, however, that religion not only survived but that hundreds of millions of Chinese today have some religious faith, including tens of millions of Christians. Visible in nearly every major Chinese city are the steeples of churches affiliated with one of the two state-approved and state-regulated Christian associations: the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Patriotic Catholic Association. Both associations operate their own seminaries, employ thousands of clergy and are served by the Amity Printing Company in Nanjing, which prints more than 10 million Bibles annually. Despite these visible manifestations of Chinese Christianity, there are significant challenges in estimating its actual size. Published estimates range from about 1% of the population in some relatively smallsample public opinion surveys to about 8% based on reviews of church membership reports. 2 Indeed, the estimate offered in this study (5%) is only an approximate one.

(See Appendix C [PDF] for more details.) A precise figure for the number of Christians in China is difficult to nail down because, aside from the fact that China does not ask about religion on its census, there is no fully representative survey of China’s 1.3 billion people. A further complication is that a substantial number of Christians worship in independent, unregistered churches. These churches do not have legal status because they have not affiliated with one of the two officially approved associations. Unregistered independent Protestant churches, often referred to as “house churches,” meet in various venues including homes, rented facilities, businesses and even public places. Additionally, a substantial number of Catholics worship in unregistered congregations that refuse to join the Patriotic Catholic Association. A main point of contention is that the Association operates independently from Rome; for instance, it appoints bishops without the approval of the pope. Unregistered churches in China operate in what Purdue University Professor Fenggang Yang refers to as “grey” or “black” religious marketplaces. 3 In practice, unregistered churches are forced to operate on the edges of the law. This is because there are few specific laws that clearly establish the limits and freedoms of religious groups in society.

4 Because of the ambiguous, and sometimes adversarial, relationship between the government and Christian groups that are not willing to join the state-approved associations, attempts to measure the size of these groups can be met with suspicion by all sides. As noted above, this study’s review of numerous research sources suggests that Christians make up approximately 5% of China’s population, numbering about 67 million. Of these, roughly 9 million (0.7% of China’s total population) are Catholics, including 5.7 million who are affiliated with the state-approved Patriotic Catholic Association and a conservatively estimated 3.3 million who are affiliated solely with unregistered Catholic congregations. The exact number of Catholics in unregistered congregations is difficult to estimate because there may be double counting in some Catholic dioceses where churches and bishops are affiliated with both the official and unofficial churches. For instance, Beijing Archbishop Joseph Li Shan is recognized by both the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the Vatican. Christians affiliated with the state-approved Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement number roughly 23 million (1.7% of the total population).

This study estimates that an additional 35 million Christians in China (2.6% of the population) are affiliated with unregistered churches or attend state-approved churches without having formal membership. Additionally, there are small populations of Orthodox Christians and other Christians, some of whom are expatriates. The general consensus among scholars of religion in China is that Christianity has grown substantially during the past three decades. It is too soon to know, however, whether Christianity’s growth has peaked or will continue in the years ahead. Whichever turns out to be the case, the religious future of the world’s most populous country will have a major impact not only on Christianity but on other religious traditions as well. (Additional information on the religious situation in China is included in Appendix C: Methodolgy for China [PDF] .) Footnotes: 1 This study includes separate estimates for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. (return to text) 7 For more information on the Muslim population of the Philippines, see Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030 , 2011.

(return to text) Middle East-North Africa (20 COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES) The Middle East-North Africa region is home to less than 1% of the world’s Christians. 14 Only about 4% of the region’s residents are Christian. Although Christianity began in this region, it now has the lowest overall number of Christians and the smallest share of its population that is Christian. Christians are a minority in every country in the region. About half (47%) of all Christians in the region live in either Egypt or Sudan. Lebanon has by far the highest percentage of Christians (38%) in the region. The only other countries in the region where more than 10% of the population is Christian are the Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. About 44% of Christians in the region are Catholic, including many Eastern-rite Catholics. Roughly the same proportion (43%) are Orthodox Christian. More than one-in-ten are Protestant (14%). Spotlight on EgyptNo nation in the Middle East-North Africa region has a larger Christian community than Egypt.

Though media reports sometimes suggest that Christians make up 10% or more of Egypt’s population of approximately 80 million people, census and survey data analyzed for this report indicate that Egypt’s Christian population is about half that size. The study finds that there are 4.3 million Christians in Egypt — more than in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria combined. Nine-in-ten Egyptian Christians are Orthodox Christian. Most Christians in Egypt belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is an Oriental Orthodox church. 1 (See Defining Christian Traditions .) Census and demographic survey data suggest that the Christian share of Egypt’s total population has been declining. 2 The highest share reported in the past century was in 1927, when the census found that 8.3% of Egyptians were Christian. In each of the eight subsequent censuses, the Christian share of the population gradually shrank. 3 The most recent census, in 2006, found that about 5% of the population was Christian. The Pew Forum’s 2011 report on the global Muslim population estimated that approximately 95% of Egyptians were Muslim in 2010.

4 Although Egypt’s Christian population is overwhelmingly Orthodox, other Christian denominations and movements have a significant presence in the country. For example, there are an estimated 140,000 Egyptian Catholics and more than 250,000 Egyptian Protestants. Evangelical, pentecostal and charismatic movements have influenced Protestantism in Egypt, leading, for example, to the formation of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services, founded by evangelical layman Samuel Habib in 1950 to promote community development. 5 Footnotes: 4 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030 , 2011. (return to text) 5 Paul Rowe, “Building Coptic Civil Society: Christian Groups and the State in Mubarak’s Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 45, Issue 1, 2009, page 120. (return to text) Footnotes: 8 To view all the countries and territories in the Americas, see the Interactive Maps . (return to text) 9 To see all the countries and territories in Europe, see the Interactive Maps .

(return to text) 10 To see how Russia ranks globally on government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion, see Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Rising Restrictions on Religion , 2011. (return to text) 11 To see all the countries and territories in Sub-Saharan Africa, see the Interactive Maps . (return to text) 12 African Independent Churches are Christian churches in sub-Saharan Africa that developed and function outside the control of Western missions or churches. Some AICs (also called African Initiated, Indigenous or Instituted Churches) incorporate aspects of traditional African religions, including revelatory dreams and visions, healing practices and belief in a spirit world. For more information, see Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa , 2010. (return to text) 13 To see all of the countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific, see the Interactive Maps . (return to text) 14 To see all the countries and territories in the Middle East and North Africa, see the Interactive Maps . (return to text) Pagination

Question: Among the countries in Asia, which one has the most Christians?
Answer: Philippines