Religion in England
Religion in England is characterised by a variety of beliefs and practices that has historically been dominated by Christianity. Christianity remains the largest religion, though it makes up less than half of the population. As of the 2021 census, there is an increasing variety of beliefs, with irreligious people outnumbering each of the other religions. The Church of England is the nation's established state church, whose supreme governor is the monarch.
Other Christian traditions in England include Roman Catholicism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, Mormonism, and the Baptists. After Christianity, the religions with the most adherents are Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism, modern paganism, and the Bahá'í Faith. There are also organisations promoting irreligion, including humanism and atheism. In the 2021 census, Shamanism was the fastest growing religion in England.
Many of England's most notable buildings and monuments are religious in nature: Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and St Paul's Cathedral. The festivals of Christmas and Easter are widely celebrated in the country.
Statistics
The 2001 and 2011 censuses did not include on adherence to individual Christian denominations, since they were asked only in the Scottish and Northern Ireland censuses and not in England and Wales. Using the same principle as applied in the 2001 census, a 2008 survey by Ipsos MORI and based on a scientifically robust sample, found the population of England and Wales to be 47.0% affiliated with the Church of England, which is also the state church, 9.6% with the Roman Catholic Church.8.7% were other Christians, mainly Free church Protestants and Eastern Orthodox. Muslims were 4.8% and 3.4% members of other religions. 5.3% were agnostics, 6.8% were atheists and 15.0% were not sure about their religious affiliation or did not answer the question.
Abrahamic religions
Christianity
Demographics
History of Christianity
is recognised as the patron saint of England and the flag of England consists of his cross. Prior to Edward III, the patron saint was St Edmund. St Alban is also honoured as England's first martyr. Other notable saints from the early period of Christianity in England include Saint Ethelbert and Saint Morwenna.Protestantism
Church of England (Anglicanism)
The established church of the realm is the Church of England, whose supreme governor is the British monarch, currently. In practice, the church is governed by its bishops under the authority of Parliament. Twenty-six of the church's 42 bishops are Lords Spiritual, representing the church in the House of Lords. The dioceses of England are divided between the two provinces of Canterbury and York, both of whose archbishops are considered primates.The church regards itself as the continuation of the Catholic church introduced by St Augustine's late 6th-century mission to Kent as part of the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England, although this is disputed owing to procedural and doctrinal changes introduced by the 16th-century English Reformation, particularly the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer. In 2010, the Church of England counted 25 million baptised members out of the 41 million Christians in Great Britain's population of about 60 million. In 2009, it claimed to baptise one in eight newborn children.
In 2018, research conducted by YouGov found that 56% of Christians in England identified as members of the Church of England. The same study found that 63% of those identifying with the Church of England "never or hardly" attend church. In 2016, according to a research survey, 19.8% of the population of England and Wales identified as Anglican; additionally half of those who reported being raised Anglican identified as 'No religion.' Generally, anyone in England may marry or be buried at their local parish church, whether or not they have been baptised in the church. Actual attendance has declined steadily since 1890, with around one million, or 10% of the baptised population attending Sunday services on a regular basis, defined as once a month or more. Three million- roughly 15%- join Christmas Eve and Christmas services. In 2012, there were around active and ordained clergy.
The Free Church of England is another Anglican denomination which separated from the Church of England in the 19th century in opposition to shifts in doctrine and ceremony which brought the established church closer to Roman Catholicism. The Free Church of England is in communion with the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States and Canada.
Catholicism
The Catholic Church in England and Wales is directed by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, whose current president is Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster. To highlight the historical Catholic continuity of Nichols' office, dating back to Pope Gregory I's appointment of St. Augustine and that pope's sequent bestowal of the pallium on the appointee, the installation rites of pre-Reformation Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury and earlier Archbishops of Westminster were used at his installation as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.In 1851, the Catholic Church was formerly forbidden from using the names of the Anglican dioceses by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act. It is divided among five provinces headed by the archbishops of Westminster, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Southwark in England and Cardiff in Wales. The Catholic Church considers itself a continuation of the earliest Celtic Christian communities, although its formal hierarchy needed to be refounded by the Gregorian mission to the Saxon kingdoms in the 6th and 7th centuries and again following the English Reformation.
In 1766, Papal recognition of George III as the legitimate ruler of Great Britain opened the way for the Catholic Emancipation, easing and ultimately eliminating the anti-Catholic Penal Laws and Test Acts. This process sometimes faced great popular opposition, as during the 1780 Gordon Riots in London. Daniel O'Connell was the first Catholic member of Parliament. Considering the "actual condition of Catholicism in England," the number of Catholics, and the obstacles "removed which chiefly opposed" it, Pope Pius IX issued in 1850 the bull Universalis Ecclesiae to restore "the normal diocesan hierarchy." More recently, the royal family has been permitted to marry Roman Catholics without fear of being disqualified from succession to the throne.
The number of Catholics peaked in the 1960s, but has been on a gradual decline ever since. Recent immigration from Catholic countries, particularly Poland and Lithuania, has slowed the church's decline. Polling in 2009 suggested there were about 5.2 million Catholics in England and Wales, about 9.6% of the population, concentrated in the northwest. In 2018, research conducted by YouGov found that 17% of all Christians in England identified as Catholic. In 2016, 8.3% of the population of England and Wales identified Catholic. In 2007, some studies showed that weekly attendance at Catholic masses exceeded that of the Anglican services.
Other
No other church in England has more than a million members, with most quite small.File:Edward Road Baptist Church, Edward Road, Balsall Heath .jpg|thumb|A Baptist church in Birmingham, West Midlands.
Pentecostal churches are growing and, in terms of church attendance, are now third after the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. There are three main denominations of Pentecostal churches: the Assemblies of God in Great Britain, the Apostolic Church, and the Elim Pentecostal Church. Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783, which today has 23 congregations in England. There is also a growing number of independent, charismatic churches that encourage Pentecostal practices at part of their worship, such as Kingsgate Community Church in Peterborough, which started with 9 people in 1988 and now has a congregation in excess of 1,500.
Various forms of Protestantism developed from the ferment of the English Civil War onwards. The Quakers were founded by George Fox in the 1640s. Following the Great Ejection of 1662, about a tenth of Church of England ministers gave up their livings to lead the newly formed dissenting churches. Notable dissenting groups were the Presbyterians, the Independents and the Baptists. In the 18th century some Presbyterians favoured ideas known as Rational Dissent which evolved into, among others, Unitarianism, which still has more than 100 congregations in the 21st century.
Methodism developed from the 18th century onwards. The Methodist revival was started in England by a group of men including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles as a movement within the Church of England, but developed as a separate denomination after John Wesley's death. The primary church in England is the Methodist Church of Great Britain. The Salvation Army dates back to 1865, when it was founded in East London by William and Catherine Booth. Its international headquarters are still in London, near St Paul's Cathedral. There is one Mennonite congregation in England, the Wood Green Mennonite Church in London.
Most Greek Orthodox Church parishes fall under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, based in London and led by Nikitas, the Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain. Created in 1932, it is the diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople that covers England, Wales and Scotland. A Greek Orthodox community already existed at the time the UK was formed, worshipping in the Imperial Russian Embassy in London. in 1837, an autonomous community was set up in Finsbury Park in London. In 1850, the first new church was built, on London Street in the city.
In 1882, St Sophia Cathedral was constructed in London, in order to cope with the growing influx of Orthodox immigrants. By the outbreak of World War I, there were large Orthodox communities in London, Manchester and Liverpool, each focused on its own church. World War II and its aftermath also saw a large expansion among the Orthodox Communities. Today, there are seven churches bearing the title of Cathedral in London as well as in Birmingham and Leicester.
In addition to these, there are eighty-one churches and other places where worship is regularly offered, twenty-five places where the divine liturgy is celebrated on a less regular basis, four chapels, and two monasteries. As is traditional within the Orthodox Church, the bishops have a considerable degree of autonomy within the Archdiocese. The Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas in Toxteth, Liverpool, was built in 1870. It is an enlarged version of St Theodore's church in Constantinople and is a Grade II Listed building.
There are Russian Orthodox groups in England. In 1962, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh founded and was for many years the bishop, archbishop and then metropolitan bishop of the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh, the Moscow Patriarchate's diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. It is the most numerous Russian Orthodox group in the country. There are also the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia churches and some churches and communities belonging to the Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe's Episcopal Vicariate in the UK.
As well as the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, there are also the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church all in London and a non-canonical Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Manchester. The Antiochian Orthodox Church have the St. George's Cathedral in London and a number of parishes across England.
All Coptic Orthodox parishes fall under the jurisdiction of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria Pope of Alexandria. The Coptic Orthodox Church in Britain and Ireland is divided into three main districts: Ireland, Scotland, and North England; the Midlands and its affiliated areas; and South Wales. There is one Patriarchal Exarchate at Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Most British converts belong to the British Orthodox Church, which is canonically part of the Coptic Orthodox Church. There is also the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in London. There is also the Armenian Apostolic Church in London.