Stability of the Orthodox Church
The successive population censuses of 1992 and 2002 show that the Romanian Orthodox Church is still the majority church. Although the total number of followers has dropped, from 19, 802, 389 to 18, 817, 975, this decrease (of approximately one million Christians) occurred at the same time as the significant decrease in the population came about (1, 129, 061 fewer inhabitants between 1992 and 2002). Religious affiliation, expressed as a percentage of the population, is therefore stable: approx. 86.8% in 1992, approx. 86.7% in 2002. Moreover, the increased offer on the religious market in Romania goes hand in hand with a decrease in (slow at present) interest in traditional religions. There has been a decrease in the number of members of these religions: for Catholics, from 1, 161, 942 (5.1%) in 1992 to 1, 026, 429 (4.73%) in 2002, for Greek-Catholics, from 233, 327 (1%) in 1992 to 191, 556 (0.81%) in 2002, for the Reformed, from 802, 454 (3.5%) in 1992 to 701, 077 (3.23%) in 2002, and so forth.