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Principal religions and denominations

The distribution of affiliation to individual religious communities can be analysed through data acquired in censuses taken in 1991 and 2001.
Altogether, there are 41 registered religious communities in the Czech Republic (as of 30 August 2019).
Approximately 80% of the members of the religious communities belong to the Roman Catholic Church. According to the Czech Bishops’ Conference, 3,887,400 baptized Catholics live in the Czech Republic (2013).

Other religious groups

The Roman Catholic Church is followed in importance by the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.
The Czechoslovak Hussite Church had about 100,000 registered members in 2007. It developed from Catholic modernism. It unites both Catholic and Protestant aspects of worship and teaching with the former Hussite tradition. It was founded as a new Church under the name Czechoslovak Church (only) in January 1920 and recognised by the state in September 1920, though not as a state (established) religion. This Church has used the extended name Czechoslovak Hussite Church since 1971. It has a small part in Slovakia, too.
The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren had 87,971 registered members in 2013. It is the first unified Protestant Church in Central Europe. It was founded in December 1918 as a result of the merger of the Czech congregations of the Evangelical Churches of the Helvetic Confession (Reformed Church) and of the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran). Calvinist influence prevails. The legal order is presbyterian. The Church is a member of the World Reformed Alliance of the Lutheran World Federation and Community of Protestant Churches in Europe CPCE (Leuenberg Church Fellowship).
30,000 people are registered with the Orthodox Church in Czech Lands. Both Lutheran Churches in Eastern Silesia have more than 30,000 members together, too.
Each of the following religious communities has more than 10,000 members: the Religious Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Church of Brethren (Evangelical Congregationalists), the Greek Catholic Church, the Christian Fellowship Church (Pentecostal church), and the Apostolic Church (Pentecostal church), the Unity of Brethren (Moravian Church) in both its parts (Czech Province and Czech Mission Province) and the Apostolic Church (Pentecostal Church). There are other religious communities, with fewer than 10,000 members.
The number of Muslims in the Czech Republic is small. According to the official survey of the Czech Statistical Office from 26 March 2011, there were 1,437 Muslims. In reality, according to the declarations of sociologists, some 5,000 Muslims lived at this time in the Czech Republic. Nowadays (2016), the number of Muslims in the Czech Republic is estimated to 10,000 people.
The number of members of the smaller religious communities tends to increase, in some cases rapidly. The Church of Brethren, Unity of Brethren and two Pentecostal Churches have doubled or tripled their members during the last twenty years. A large number of religious communities was founded and soon registered. Some religious communities of Eastern origin (Hare Krishna movement, Czech Hindu Religious Society, Diamond Way Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism) are on the growth not through immigration, but by gaining Czech members.

D 2 September 2019    AZáboj Horák

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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