The sections of EUREL

The information provided on the EUREL website is organised under different headings.

– The country overview offers basic geographic and demographic data such as area, population, or main cities. It also provides a short presentation of the religious situation of the country.

– The historical highlights heading contains two chapters: firstly, a chronology, providing reference points in the history of the country.
Secondly, the historical survey provides significant elements of the country’s recent history, focussing on religious history.

– The law and religion heading presents legislation concerning religious activities and organisation of religious denominations.
In different chapters, this heading provides the Legal framework with a general overview the status of religious denominations; the Specific fields in which law can apply to religion, namely the financing of religions, the status of schooling, of marriage, the chaplaincy, the workplace, the biolaw and the intimate, the ritual slaughter, as well as any other significant information; the main texts.

– Under the heading social and religious data, you will find a survey of the state of the main religions, given via quantitative information.
Firstly, the sources of information are presented (how and where information is collected and broadcast, and how reliable it is).
The heading includes a chapter describing the religious landscape, and information concerning the religious groups which also takes into account the phenomenon of non-religion.
These data are completed and illustrated in the chapter concerning religious geography, which details the geographical distribution of religious belonging and explains the reasons and sociological impact of such distribution.
The religious belonging and religious demography chapter provides data concerning their evolution; this may concern all the religious denominations, or give a more precise approach of one of them. The religious demography highlights the importance of clergy.
The religious participation chapter contains three parts: religious practice, financial participation, religious manifestations such as meetings, pilgrimages etc. This chapter favours a comparative perspective, between the different countries as well as, for each country, for its recent development.
The last chapter presents religious attitudes, opinions and beliefs, mainly via results of surveys.

– Under the heading religion and society, we assess the impact of religion on different aspects of social life and its legal treatment in the country.
This heading is divided into ten chapters: questions of schooling, questions concerning religious minorities (with a specific interest for islam), questions concerning social welfare, a chapter concerning religions in and through the media, one concerning the influence of religions on matters of health taking also into account questions related to death, one ethical issues, one on the matters of religion in the work place, yet another concerning the relationship between religion and prison, the next one dealing with religious practices and the last one with the impact of religion.

– The current issues and debates take into account any aspect of the religion which emerges in the public debate. This heading can contain one or several chapters, each one expressing a matter of general interest; it highlights the stakes and expresses the different trends of opinion.
This heading is updated at least on a quarterly basis; ancient chapters can be found under the "archives" item.

– The research and higher education heading informs, on each country, on the institutional framework of instruction and research in law and sociology of religions (university syllabus, research institutions, associations and so on). This part presents on the one hand comparative information on matters such as where research and teaching for each discipline takes place; on the other hand a presentation of the forms of institutionalization and trends of thought concerning these questions.

– Under the further information heading, bibliographic marks and a list of links can be found.
The bibliographic highlights contain three parts: references in history, law of religions and sociology of religions.
The useful links send back to websites providing precise and interesting information.

Note

A specific information may be related to several topics. For instance, the question of schooling will be dealt with under the heading "juridical status of religions", "religion and society", and possibly "topical items". When searching for information on a specific subject, please remember to use the search item, as well as the list of thematic searches available in the tabs at the top of the page.
All the juridical texts mentioned in Eurel provide a link to the Legirel database, realised by DRES, which gives access to the full text of the legislation of the member states of the European Union, concerning the organisation and legal status of religious denominations.