Religion in Germany
is the largest religion in Germany. It was introduced to the area of modern Germany by 300 AD, while parts of that area belonged to the Roman Empire, and later, when Franks and other Germanic tribes converted to Christianity from the fifth century onwards. The area became fully Christianized by the time of Charlemagne in the eighth and ninth century. After the Reformation started by Martin Luther in the early 16th century, many people left the Catholic Church and became Protestant, mainly Lutheran and Reformed. In the 17th and 18th centuries, German cities also became hubs of heretical and sometimes anti-religious freethinking, challenging the influence of religion and contributing to the spread of secular thinking about morality across Germany and Europe.
In 2024, around 48% of the population were Christians, among them 45% members of the two large Christian churches. Around half of Christians in Germany are Catholics, mostly from the Latin Church; Catholicism is stronger in the southern and the western part of the country. Nearly half belongs to the Protestant Church in Germany that is stronger in the northern regions, and the rest to several small Christian denominations such as the Union of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany, the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Jehovah's Witnesses. Estimations for the percentage of Muslims vary between 4.7% and 6.7%, while much smaller religions include Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Yazidism. The rest of the population is not affiliated with any church, and many are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise irreligious. 60% of German residents say that they believe there is a God, 9% say that they believe there is a higher power or spiritual force and 27% say that they do not believe there is a God, higher power or spiritual force. In a Eurobarometer survey from 2010, 44% said that they believe there is a God, 25% said that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force and 27% said that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force. 35% of residents identify with their religion or belief.
Nearly half of Germans have no religion. Demographics of religion in Germany vary greatly by region and age, with sharp divides that reflect both the country's history as an Enlightenment hub and its later experiences with post-war communism. Non-religious people typically represent the majority in Germany's major cities, including Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Munich and Cologne, as well as in the eastern states which used to be East Germany between 1949 and 1990. By contrast, rural areas of the western states of what in the same period used to be West Germany are more religious, and some rural areas are highly religious.
History
Paganism and Roman settlement (1000 BC–300 AD)
Ancient Germanic paganism was a polytheistic religion practised in prehistoric Germany and Scandinavia, as well as Roman territories of Germania by the first century AD. It had a pantheon of deities that included Donar/Thunar, Wuotan/Wodan, Frouwa/Frua, Balder/Phol/Baldag, and others shared with northern Germanic paganism. Celtic paganism and later Gallo-Roman syntheses were instead practised in western and southern parts of modern Germany, while Slavic paganism was practised in the east.Late Roman and Carolingian eras (300–1000)
In the territories of Germany under the control of the Roman Empire, early Christianity was introduced and began to flourish after the fourth century. Although pagan Roman temples existed beforehand, Christian religious structures were soon built, such as the Aula Palatina in Trier, completed during the reign of Roman emperor Constantine I.During the Carolingian period, Christianity spread throughout Germany, particularly during the reign of Charlemagne. Religious structures built during the Carolingian period include the Palatine Chapel, Aachen, a surviving component of the Palace of Aachen built by architect Odo of Metz during the reign of Charlemagne.
Pre-Reformation period (1000–1517)
Territories of the present-day Germany, like much of Europe, were entirely Roman Catholic with religious break-offs being suppressed by both the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor.Reformation, Counter-Reformation and the Thirty Years' War (1517–1648)
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 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 and rejection of the Lutheran "Augsburg Confession" at the Diet of Augsburg, a separate Lutheran church emerged.
From 1545 the Counter-Reformation began in Germany. Much of its impetus came from the newly founded 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 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.
In 1608/1609 the Protestant Union and the Catholic League formed. The Thirty Years' War, 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.
Post-Thirty Years' War period and Protestant church unions (1648–1871)
Two main developments reshaped religion in Germany after 1814. There was a movement to unite the larger Lutheran and the smaller Reformed Protestant churches. The churches themselves brought this about in Baden, Nassau, and Bavaria. However, in Prussia King Frederick William III was determined to handle unification entirely on his own terms, without consultation. His goal was to unify the Protestant churches, and to impose a single standardised liturgy, organisation, and even architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralised royal control of all the Protestant churches. In a series of proclamations over several decades the Evangelical Church of the Prussian Union was formed, bringing together the more numerous Lutherans and the less numerous Reformed Protestants. The government of Prussia now had full control over church affairs, with the king himself recognised as the leading bishop. Opposition to unification came from the "Old Lutherans" in Prussia and Silesia who followed the theological and liturgical forms they had followed since the days of Luther. The government attempted to crack down on them, so they went underground. Tens of thousands migrated to South Australia and the United States, where they formed the Missouri Synod. Finally, in 1845 the new king, Frederick William IV, offered a general amnesty and allowed the Old Lutherans to form separate free church associations with only nominal government control.From the religious point of view of the typical Catholic or Protestant, major changes were underway in terms of a much more personalised religiosity that focused on the individual more than the church or the ceremony. Opposing the rationalism of the late 18th century, there was a new emphasis on the psychology and feeling of the individual, especially in terms of contemplating sinfulness, redemption, and the mysteries and the revelations of Christianity. Pietistic revivals were common among Protestants. Among Catholics there was a sharp increase in popular pilgrimages. In 1844 alone, half a million pilgrims made a pilgrimage to the city of Trier in the Rhineland to view the Seamless robe of Jesus, said to be the robe that Jesus wore on the way to his crucifixion. Catholic bishops in Germany had historically been largely independent of Rome, but now the Vatican exerted increasing control, a new "ultramontanism" of Catholics highly loyal to Rome. A sharp controversy broke out in 1837–38 in the largely Catholic Rhineland over the religious education of children of mixed marriages, where the mother was Catholic and the father Protestant. The government passed laws to require that these children always be raised as Protestants, contrary to Napoleonic law that had previously prevailed and allowed the parents to make the decision. It put the Catholic Archbishop under house arrest. In 1840, the new King Frederick William IV sought reconciliation and ended the controversy by agreeing to most of the Catholic demands.
Kulturkampf and the German Empire (1871–1918)
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck would not tolerate any base of power outside Germany and launched the Kulturkampf against the power of the pope and the Catholic Church. This gained strong support from German liberals, who saw the Catholic Church as the bastion of reaction and their greatest enemy. The Catholic element, in turn, saw the National Liberals as its worst enemy and formed the Center Party.Catholics, although about a third of the national population, were seldom allowed to hold major positions in the Imperial government or the Prussian government. After 1871, there was a systematic purge of Catholics; in the powerful interior ministry, which handled all police affairs, the only Catholic was a messenger boy.
The German Empire passed the Pulpit Law, which made it a crime for any cleric to discuss political issues, and the Jesuits Law drove this order out of German territory. In 1873, Bismarck, as prime minister of Prussia, launched further anti-church measures: Public schools and the registration of births, marriages and deaths were transferred from religious authorities to the state. Germans could now change their religious affiliation through the civil registry. Other German states followed through with similar measures. Nearly all Catholic bishops, clergy, and laymen rejected the legality of the new laws, and were defiant facing the increasingly heavy penalties and imprisonments imposed by Bismarck's government. Historian Anthony Steinhoff reports the casualty totals:
As of 1878, only three of eight Prussian dioceses still had bishops, some 1,125 of 4,600 parishes were vacant, and nearly 1,800 priests ended up in jail or in exile....Finally, between 1872 and 1878, numerous Catholic newspapers were confiscated, Catholic associations and assemblies were dissolved, and Catholic civil servants were dismissed merely on the pretence of having Ultramontane sympathies.
The British ambassador Odo Russell reported to London in October 1872 how Bismarck's plans were backfiring by strengthening the ultramontane position inside German Catholicism:
The German Bishops who were politically powerless in Germany and theologically in opposition to the Pope in Rome – have now become powerful political leaders in Germany and enthusiastic defenders of the now infallible Faith of Rome, united, disciplined, and thirsting for martyrdom, thanks to Bismarck's uncalled for antiliberal declaration of War on the freedom they had hitherto peacefully enjoyed.
Bismarck underestimated the resolve of the Catholic Church and did not foresee the extremes that this struggle would entail. The Catholic Church denounced the harsh new laws as anti-catholic and mustered the support of its rank and file voters across Germany. In the following elections, the Center Party won a quarter of the seats in the Imperial Diet. The conflict ended after 1879 for two reasons: Pope Pius IX died in 1878 and was succeeded by the more conciliatory Pope Leo XIII. Bismarck was also looking for greater parliamentary support after his alliance with the National Liberals ended over Bismarck's tariff changes and Social-Democrats emerged as new threat. Following negotiations with Leo XIII, peace was restored: the bishops returned, and the jailed clerics were released. Laws were toned down or taken back, but the Jesuits Law and the Pulpit Law were not repealed until 1917 and 1953, respectively. The changes concerning schools, civil registry, marriage and religious disaffiliation remain in place today. The Center Party gained strength and became an ally of Bismarck, especially when he attacked socialism.