Religion in Germany
After the Reformation started by Martin Luther in the early 16th century, many people left the Catholic Church and became Protestant, mainly Lutheran and Calvinist.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, German cities also became hubs of heretical and sometimes anti-religious freethinking, challenging the influence of religion and contributing to the spread of secular thinking about morality across Germany and Europe.
[4][5] Estimations for the percentage of Muslims vary between 4.6%[3] and 6.7%,[6][7] while much smaller religions include Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Yazidism.
Demographics of religion in Germany vary greatly by region and age, with sharp divides that reflect both the country's history as an Enlightenment hub and its later experiences with post-war communism.
[12] Ancient Germanic paganism was a polytheistic religion practised in prehistoric Germany and Scandinavia, as well as Roman territories of Germania by the first century AD.
In the early 16th century abuses (such as selling indulgences in the Catholic Church) occasioned much discontent, and a general desire for reform emerged.
The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, played out primarily in German lands, but involved most of the countries of Europe.
Finally, in 1845 the new king, Frederick William IV, offered a general amnesty and allowed the Old Lutherans to form separate free church associations with only nominal government control.
[20]: 412–419 [21][22]: 485–491 From the religious point of view of the typical Catholic or Protestant, major changes were underway in terms of a much more personalised religiosity that focused on the individual more than the church or the ceremony.
Opposing the rationalism of the late 18th century, there was a new emphasis on the psychology and feeling of the individual, especially in terms of contemplating sinfulness, redemption, and the mysteries and the revelations of Christianity.
Nearly all Catholic bishops, clergy, and laymen rejected the legality of the new laws, and were defiant facing the increasingly heavy penalties and imprisonments imposed by Bismarck's government.
Historian Anthony Steinhoff reports the casualty totals: As of 1878, only three of eight Prussian dioceses still had bishops, some 1,125 of 4,600 parishes were vacant, and nearly 1,800 priests ended up in jail or in exile.
[26]The British ambassador Odo Russell reported to London in October 1872 how Bismarck's plans were backfiring by strengthening the ultramontane (pro-papal) position inside German Catholicism: The German Bishops who were politically powerless in Germany and theologically in opposition to the Pope in Rome – have now become powerful political leaders in Germany and enthusiastic defenders of the now infallible Faith of Rome, united, disciplined, and thirsting for martyrdom, thanks to Bismarck's uncalled for antiliberal declaration of War on the freedom they had hitherto peacefully enjoyed.
[28][29] The Catholic Church denounced the harsh new laws as anti-catholic and mustered the support of its rank and file voters across Germany.
[31] The national constitution of 1919 determined that the newly formed Weimar Republic had no state church, and guaranteed freedom of religion.
[32] When Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party seized power in January 1933, it sought to assert state supremacy over all sectors of life.
[11] Religious communities which are of sufficient size and stability and which are loyal to the constitution can be recognised as Körperschaften öffentlichen Rechtes (statutory corporations).
[39][failed verification] In 2018 the states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Bremen made Reformation Day (31 October) a permanent official holiday.
[43] With the decline of Christianity in the late 20th and early 21st century, accentuated in the east by the official atheism of the former German Democratic Republic, the northeastern states of Germany are now mostly not religious (70%), with many of the people living there being agnostics and atheists.
[11] Immigrations in the late 20th and early 21st century have brought new religions into Germany, including Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam.
In what used to be East Germany both religious observance and affiliation are much lower than in the rest of the country, after forty years of Communist rule.
30% of German youths stated belief in a personal god, 19% believe in some kind of supernatural power, 23% share agnostic views and 28% are atheists.
By the end of World War II, four years later, around 6 million Jews had been killed by the National Socialist government.
[94] About ninety thousand Jews from the former Eastern Bloc, mostly from ex-Soviet Union countries, have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
[98] Druze in Germany are mostly of Syrian descent, and they practice Druzism, a monotheistic religion encompasses aspects of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Greek philosophy, among influences.
Continued development of youth oriented programs included the Diversity Dance Theater (see Oscar DeGruy) which traveled to Albania in February 1997.
Former member of the federal parliament Ernst Ulrich von Weizsaecker commended the ideas of the German Bahá'í community on social integration, which were published in a statement in 1998, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl sent a congratulatory message to the 1992 ceremony marking the 100th Anniversary of the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh.
Other Pagan religions include the Celto-Germanic Matronenkult grassroots worship practiced in Rhineland, Celtoi (a Celtic religious association), and Wiccan groups.
In 1997, the parliament set up a commission for Sogenannte Sekten und Psychogruppen (literally "so-called sects and psychic groups"), which in 1998 delivered an extensive report on the situation in Germany regarding NRMs.
[100] In 2002, the Federal Constitutional Court upheld the governmental right to provide critical information on religious organisations being referred to as Sekte, but stated that "defamatory, discriminating, or falsifying accounts" were illegal.
