Religion in Estonia
Overview of Religion in Estonia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Religion in Estonia?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Estonia, historically a Lutheran Christian nation,[2][3][4] is today one of the "least religious" countries in the world in terms of declared attitudes, with only 14 percent of the population declaring religion to be an important part of their daily life.[5] This is thought to largely be a result of the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940,[citation needed] prior to which Estonia had a large Christian majority.
The religious population is predominantly Christian and includes followers of 90 affiliations. According to the Estonian Council of Churches data from December 2019, 13.8 percent of the population belong to the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, while 13.1 percent belong to the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate (EOCMP), and 2.3 percent belong to the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. The Union of Free Evangelical and Baptist Churches of Estonia and the Roman Catholic Church in Estonia together comprise 1 percent of the population. Other Christian groups, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostals, Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Russian Old Believers, collectively constitute 1.1 percent of the population.[6] According to Ringo Ringvee, "religion has never played an important role on the political or ideological battlefield" and the "tendencies that prevailed in the late 1930s for closer relations between the state and Lutheran church were ended with the Soviet occupation in 1940". He further states that "the chain of religious traditions was broken in most families" under the Soviet policy of state atheism.[3][7] Before the Second World War, Estonia was approximately 80 per cent Protestant; overwhelmingly Lutheran, partly because of historic Swedish rule. Under Russian and Soviet rule, this predominance greatly decreased, while Eastern Orthodoxy increased due to immigration of Russians.
Between 2001 and 2011 census, Eastern Orthodoxy overtook Lutheranism to become the largest Christian denomination in the country due to increasing lack of affiliation and very few conversions among Estonians, as well as due to steady or even increased religious affiliation among the Russian-speaking minorities. Lutheranism still remains the most popular religious group among ethnic Estonians (11 percent of them are Lutherans while also 2 percent of them are Orthodox), while Eastern Orthodoxy is practised mainly by the mostly non-indigenous Slavic minorities (approximately 45 per cent of them are Orthodox). According to the University of Tartu, irreligious Estonians are not necessarily atheists; instead, the 2010s have witnessed a growth of Neopagan, Buddhist and Hindu beliefs among those who declare themselves to be "not religious".[8]