Religion in Ecuador
Other religions are present in small numbers: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam.
Approximately 1.4 percent identify as members of other religious groups, including Seventh-day Adventists, the Church of Jesus Christ, Jews, and Protestants.
In 1899, the liberal government of Eloy Alfaro made a new constitution which respected all religions and guaranteed freedom of religious choice.
According to the 2020 census by Statista, Protestant community representing 16.8% from Ecuador's population, includes unspecified Evangelical (10.6%), Pentecostalism (3.7%), Seventh-day Adventist (1.2%), Baptist church (0.9%) and Methodist (0.2%).
It supports the "Albert Einstein School", where Jewish history, religion and Hebrew classes are offered.
The "Asociación Islámica Cultural Khaled Ibn al Walidi" reunites the Arab Muslims in the country and has its seat in Quito.
The Islamic Center "Al Hijra" is located in Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city and economic hub, with an estimated 85 members.
A large number of these immigrants and their descendants have retained their native religions with approximately 5,000 practicing Buddhists.
The state admitted representatives of other religions into the country, established a system of public education, and seized most of the church's rural properties.
At the same time, however, Catholics were warned against employing Marxian analyses of society or endorsing violence or class conflict.
After accusing the prelates of interfering in Ecuador's internal politics and discussing subversive subjects, the minister of interior released Proaño and expelled the foreign bishops from the country.
[16] Although approximately 94 percent of Ecuadorians were at least nominally Catholic at the time, most either did not practice their religion or pursued a syncretistic version.
Although multidenominational groups such as the Gospel Missionary Union (GMU) had been active in Ecuador since the beginning of the twentieth century, significant levels of conversion did not occur until the late 1960s.
Other significant forces in the Protestant camp included World Vision, an evangelical development group based in California, and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL).
The Texas-based SIL dispatched linguists to remote areas of Ecuador to study and codify tribal languages.
[16] The phenomenal pace of conversion — some observers estimated that evangelicals and Pentecostals totaled 40 percent of the population in Chimborazo Province in the late 1980s — affected social relations in rural areas.
Protestantism replaced the patterns of mutual reciprocity characteristic of peasant social relations with a network of sharing and support among fellow believers.
This support system extended to migrants; converts who left for the city or the coast sought out their coreligionists for assistance in finding lodging and employment even as Catholics looked to their compadres.
