Religion in the United Kingdom

Although Christianity is the recognized religion of most people in the UK we all acknowledge that we live ina multi-faith society. In some ways it has been a multi-faith society since the Reformation 500 years ago. Although Queen Elizabeth 1 made the Church of England the state religion, there were many other churches, including Protestants who were non-conformists, such as Methodists and Baptists, as well as Roman Catholics and, from 1657, Jews.

In the 2001 Census the majority of British citizens wrote „Christianity“ as their main belief, although the majority do not necessarily go to church. The second largest group was people who acknowledge that they had no religion and the third group was Muslim. In the next Census in 2011 it is expected that the numbers in the top group will drop and the numbers in the next two groups will grow. When looking at the list of religions/beliefs, which people wrote down in the 2001 Census, it can be seen that many people did not take this seriously!

 2001 Census