Results from the 2008 wave of the European Values Study in Cyprus

The European Values Study (hence, EVS), 2008 cycle, includes a number of questions about religion. Cyprus participated to the study with a sample of 1000 people. The results of the study can give an insight to the attitudes of the people towards religion and religious organisations. Around 96% of the total sample said that they were Christian Orthodox ("which religious denomination do you belong to?", question Q23a), a very high percentage compared to the census results. This probably shows that people of other denominations may be under-represented in the sample. This is something that should be taken into account when analysing the results of the study.

One of the EVS questions is "How important is religion in your life?" (question Q1F). The responses of the Cypriot sample (shown below) suggest that religion is very important or quite important for around 93.1% of the respondents.

How important in your life: religion (Q1F)

The responses of Cypriots to another question ("do you belong to a religious organisation?", question Q5aB) showed that around 5.5% of the population belongs to a religious organisation. However, only 3.7% of the respondents said that they had offered unpaid work for a religious organisation "do you work unpaid for a religious organisation?", question Q5bB).

Regarding to the attitudes of the Cypriots against other faiths, it is interesting to mention that 35.1% of all the respondents said that they don’t like having Muslims as neighbours (question Q6H). The corresponding percentages for Jews (question Q6M) and Christians (question Q6O) are 24.5% and 0%.

It is also interesting to mention that 91.1% of the whole sample said that they are religious persons (Q28) and 95.8% said that they believe in God.