Religion in Denmark

[12] Among those who report Danish ancestry (as opposed to persons of recent immigrant descent), there has been a decline in the proportion who are members of the National Church, from approx.

[14] Membership statistics from 1984 to 2008: According to Danish researcher Brian Arly Jacobsen, Muslims living in Denmark make up ca.

[27] A Jewish community has been present in Denmark since the seventeenth century, when the monarchs began allowing Jews to enter the country and practice their religion on an individual basis.

Emancipation followed gradually and by the end of the nineteenth century most Jews were fully assimilated into Danish society.

In the early decades of the twentieth century there was an influx of more secular, Yiddish speaking, Eastern European Jews.

Hannah and Ole Nydahl founded the first Karma Kagyu Buddhist centers in Copenhagen.

[36] According to a survey of various religions and denominations undertaken by the Danish Foreign Ministry, other religious groups comprise less than 1% of the population individually and approximately 2% when taken all together.

In 2016, the designer Jim Lyngvild established the heathen building Manheim in Korinth on Funen.

The faith is taught in public schools, though students may withdraw from religious classes with parental consent.

The provision was viewed as a means of requiring Muslims who refuse to touch someone of a different gender on religious grounds to adopt practices seen as “Danish.” In February 2022, one person was denied citizenship for protesting the law by refusing to shake hands during the citizenship ceremony.

In December 2023, Parliament adopted an amendment to the penal code that criminalized “inappropriate treatment” of religious texts in public, in response to several burnings of the Quran in Denmark and Sweden earlier in the year that sparked anger in some Muslim nations.