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| Archcathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Andrew, Frombork in Poland, where the astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus worked a canon |
When I recently traveled through the states around the Baltic Sea, namely northern Germany, Poland, the Baltic states and Finland, I noticed that the individual countries have very different religious affiliations. I will explore this in this blog post.
Germany
As I began my journey in Germany and ended it in the north (Lübeck), I will also start with Germany. Christians make up around 55% of the population in Germany as a whole, with Catholics and Protestants each making up around 28%. Catholics predominate in southern Germany and Protestants tend to be more prominent in northern Germany [1]. Germany was christianized from the fifth century onwards. Starting in the 13th century, German crusaders, the Teutonic Knights, conquered pagan Prussia and converted it to Catholicism. In the 16th century, Martin Luther and the Swiss reformers (Zwingli and Calvin) started the Reformation. The Thirty Years' War from 1618-1648 resulted in a division into Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches [2].
Lübeck is located in Schleswig-Holstein. In 2011, 51.5% of the population there were Protestant, 6.0% Roman Catholic and 42.5% were non-denominational, belonged to another religious community or did not provide information. In 2022, however, things looked significantly different: 39.1% Protestant, 5.5% Catholic and 55.3% were non-denominational, belonged to another religious community or did not provide information [3]. In any case, a move away from the major Christian churches can be seen.
In neighboring Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the situation is completely different. According to a study from 2022, 83.7% of the population are non-denominational or belong to small religious communities. Over the last 150 years, the proportion of Protestant and Catholic church members has fallen from 99% to 16.3% of the population [4]. These figures can be traced back to the 40-year policy of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) in the GDR (German Democratic Republic). In 1950, 85% of the population of the GDR were Protestants and 10% Catholics. By 1989, these figures had fallen to 25% Protestants and 5% Catholics. The GDR constitution of 1949 provided for "complete freedom of belief and conscience" in Article 41, Paragraph 1, but the constitutional reality was different [5]. From 1954, the SED introduced the ritual of socialist youth consecration, which was intended to "form the growing generations into socialist personalities" and alienate them from the churches. As one can see, this was successful. They were not very successful in anti-fascism, as can be seen, but that is another topic.
Lübeck Cathedral (Lübecker Dom), a brick-built Lutheran cathedral
Poland
For many people, Poland is still a predominantly Catholic country. But the number of Christians in Poland is also decreasing. At least in a 2021 census, 71.3% of Poles were Catholic, the other Christian denominations made up only 1.2%, 6.9% had no religion and 20.6% left the question unanswered [6]. The forerunners of the Poles are considered to be the West Slavic and Lechian peoples, who practiced different forms of pagan belief ("rodzimowierstwo"). Lechian goes back to the forefather of the Polish people, Duke Lech, named in a legend, and is perhaps more commonly known from the term Lechian languages [7], which are used to group together Kashubian, Slovinian (extinct), Polabian (extinct) and Polish. In the early days of the Polish state, different religions coexisted, but after the beginning of christianization in 966, the pagan religions were gradually eradicated over the next few centuries. We should not forget the Jewish faith either, because until World War II, a large proportion of Eastern Jews lived in Poland, so that about 10% of the population was of the Jewish faith. The Shoah destroyed Jewish life, culture and religion. The percentage was particularly high in Poland, because after the German invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II, escape was hardly possible. In a 2011 census, the percentage of people of Jewish faith was given as 0.004% [8]. While the GDR managed to reduce the number of believers from 95% of the population to 30% within 40 years, Catholics in Poland proved more resistant to the socialist maxim of atheism. Pope John Paul II played a major role in ensuring that this remained the case, perhaps also through his support of the Solidarity trade union federation (Solidarność) [9].
Christ's Resurrection Basilica in Kaunas (Lithuania)
Lithuania
In Lithuania, too, the dominant religious group are the Catholics. Through the Union of Lublin, Lithuania was united with Poland from 1569 to 1795 as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth or simply as Poland-Lithuania. Before that, however, there was already a personal union of the country's rulers through the Krewo Agreement of 1385 [10]. Catholicism was the state religion. While the nobility converted, the common man or the peasants continued to follow pagan beliefs for a long time. According to a census of 2021, 74.2% were Catholics, 4.4% Orthodox, 0.6% Lutherans and those without a religious affiliation made up 13.7% [11].
Window in the Riga Cathedral (Latvian: Rīgas Doms; German: Dom zu Riga)
Latvia
In Latvia we find a completely different situation, and the country's history is also decisive for this. Latvia was christianized late, partly through what was later called the Northern Crusades, when the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden but also the German military orders (Livonian and Teutonic Orders) not only wanted to christianize but also to stake out their spheres of influence. Finnish paganism and Baltic mythology persisted in the region for a long time, and some festivals retain pagan roots to this day.
Let's look at today's figures, or rather the 2019 census. 31.1% did not state any religion, but the largest proportion is Lutheran with 36.5%, followed by Catholics with 19.0% and Orthodox with 13.5%. During the Soviet era, some places of worship were used ecumenically, as I have already reported [12].
Estonia
In Estonia, things are significantly different from the other two states of the three Baltic republics. We have already looked at the historical ties between Poland and Lithuania. Lithuania and Latvia are connected by a branch of the Baltic languages. Without wanting to anticipate, because I would like to look more closely at the languages of the region, Latvian and Lithuanian belong to the East Baltic branch [13] – we will also have to look at extinct languages, but that would not take us any further here. Estonia is linguistically very different, because Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language like Finnish and Hungarian. Historically, Estonia was a Lutheran Christian nation like Finland, although Christianization began in the 13th century with the Livonian Crusade. Before World War II, 80% of the population were Protestant, mainly the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Estonia. Here too, the influence of Stalinist-style socialism seems to have been greater among religious communities.
The picture today is rather frightening. Religion plays an important role in the lives of only 14% of the population. In the 2021 census, the statement "no religion" leads with 58.4%, Orthodox Christians make up 16.3%, which probably corresponds to the Russian minority, and Lutherans 7.7%.
Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallinn (Estonia)
Finland
Finland is a predominantly Christian nation [14]. It has two national churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, to which 65.2% belong, and the Finnish Orthodox Church, to which 1.1% of the population belong. Other Christian groups or non-Christian religions play a subordinate role, but are present in public life, for example through their own cemeteries. 32.0% of the population in the above-mentioned census described themselves as having no religious affiliation.
Finland was Christianized in the 11th century, before that Finnish paganism was the predominant religion in the country. The Church in Finland was part of the Church of Sweden, so that with the confirmation of the Reformation by the Swedish Diet in 1527 (during the reign of Gustav Vasa), the Roman Catholic confession was replaced by the Evangelical Lutheran confession [15]. And so it remained, despite all political perils.
I hope I have not gone into too much detail, because that is what you should do yourself. The Wikipedia articles alone provide material for a long reading, but we know that there is much more to be found behind these articles.
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| Tempelbau Church, a Lutheran church in Töölö (Helsinki, Finland) aka the Church of the Rock |
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://www.familysearch.org/de/wiki/Kirchengeschichte_des_Deutschlands
[2] https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Germany_Church_History
[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleswig-Holstein#Konfessionsstatistik
[4] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern#Religion und
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern#Religion
[5] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Demokratische_Republik#Religionen_und_Religionsersatz
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Poland
[7] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lechische_Sprachen
[8] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religia_w_Polsce
[9] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarno%C5%9B%C4%87
[10] This is far too extensive, but also quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Lithuania
[12] Sigulda 4 – Evangelical Lutheran Church https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2024/08/sigulda-4-evangelical-lutheran-church.html For ecumenical use of the church: https://caminolatvia.com/object/sigulda-evangelical-lutheran-church/?route=646&stage=636
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_languages
[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Finland
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Lutheran_Church_of_Finland
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