Religion in Poland

The dominant religion in Poland is Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church is by far the largest denomination, with a following of 87% of the population. In addition, there are Orthodox and Protestant churches in Poland, as well as a relatively small minority of Jews and Muslims. Approximately 10% of the population is not religiously organised.

Until the end of the Second World War, Poland could be regarded as a multi-ethnic state, which was also characterised by different denominations and religions. The Belarusians and Ukrainians, who mainly lived east of the so-called Curzon Line, mostly belonged to the Orthodox Church, the Ruthenian Catholic Church and the Uniate Church respectively. About 10% of the inhabitants of the Polish territory were of the Jewish faith. The Germans residing in the greater areas of Posen, Pomerelia, Łódź and Volhynia were mostly Protestant, unlike the mostly Catholic German-speaking Eastern Upper Silesians. The Armenians and Lipka Tatars residing in southeastern pre-war Poland were also generally not members of the Roman Catholic Church.

Until the re-Catholicization in the 17th century, the Reformation Unitarian Polish Brethren were also widespread in Poland-Lithuania. Mennonite congregations also existed for a time on the Vistula. The present situation of an ethnically and denominationally largely homogeneous state is to be seen as the result of war, genocide, expulsion and above all the westward shift of Poland in 1945, in the course of which the settlement area of most Orthodox or Ruthenian-Catholic Ukrainians and White Russians was annexed to the USSR.

After the Catholic Church, the Polish Orthodox Church is the next largest denomination with 504,150 members and the seat of the Metropolitan in Warsaw.

The united Greek Catholic Church with 55,000 members was de facto recognized again in 1992 after a period of repression since 1946.

The "Evangelical Augsburg Church in Poland", which looks back on a Polish tradition since the 16th century as a Lutheran church, comprised about 400,000 members before the Second World War, about 75% of whom were German-speaking and about 25% Polish-speaking. In the course of the forced resettlement of the German-speaking members of the congregation after the Second World War, the number of members fell to about 100,000. In the post-war period, the Evangelical Augsburg Church was often discredited because of the - inaccurate - equation of Protestantism and German nationality. Today the Evangelical Augsburg Church in Poland has 61,738 members. Among others, the former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek and Adam Małysz are Protestants.

The significant minority churches in Poland belong to the Polish Ecumenical Council:

• Polish Orthodox Church (504,150 members)
• Evangelical Augsburg Church in Poland (Lutheran) (61,738 members)
• Old Catholic Church of the Mariavites (23,436 members)
• Polish Catholic Church (20,402 members)
• Baptists in Poland (4,864 members) - Seventh-day Baptists, Free Baptists (1,300 members)
• Evangelical Methodist Church (4,352 members)
• Evangelical Reformed Church in Poland (Calvinists) (3,488 members)

Non-members of the Polish Ecumenical Council include:

• Jehovah's Witnesses (129,270 active members)
• Pentecostal Church (22,429 members)
• Church of God in Christ (4,140 members)
• Catholic Church of the Mariavites (1,980 members)
• Old Catholic Church in Poland (1006 members)

The number of Jews, in 1939 3.3 million, is today only 5,000.The
number of Muslims is about 25,000 - 31,000 believers, of which about 5,000 are Polish Tatars (see Islam in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus).

The Catholic Church still has a great influence in everyday life and politics in Poland today, which can be traced back to Poland's history after the Second World War. During the communist regime, many Poles perceived the Catholic Church as being on their side, and also found support from the then Pope, Poland's John Paul II.

Footnotes

1. ↑ European Commission: Discrimination in the European Union (= Special Eurobarometer, No. 493). Brussels, September 2019, pp. 229-230 (online, PDF), accessed 2 July 2020.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} Główny Urząd Statystyczny: Mały rocznik statystyczny Polski 2012 (PDF; 13,7 MB), Zakład Wydawnictw Statystycznych, Warszawa, 2012, pp. 134-135.
3. ↑ Główny Urząd Statystyczny: Ludność - bilans opracowany w oparciu o wyniki NSP 2011: 31 December 2011 r. , 8 October 2012