Religion in England

Religion in England is made up of many different beliefs and practices. For a long time, Christianity has been the most common religion there. Even today, it is still the largest religion, but it is practiced by less than half of all people in England. According to the 2021 census, there are now many different beliefs, with people who do not follow any religion outnumbering those of each other religion.

The Church of England is special because it is the official state church and its leader is the monarch. Besides Christianity, other religions that many people in England follow include Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism. There are also groups that do not follow any religion, such as those who believe in humanism or atheism.

England is also known for its important religious buildings like Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral, and St Paul's Cathedral. Celebrations like Christmas and Easter are enjoyed by many people throughout the country.

Statistics

In surveys from 2008, about half of people in England and Wales said they were connected to the Church of England, which is also the state church. Another small group said they were linked to the Roman Catholic Church.

Many other people said they were Christians from different groups like Free church Protestants or Eastern Orthodox. Some said they were Muslims, and a few chose other religions. Many people were not sure about their beliefs or did not answer the question.

Abrahamic religions

Christianity

Demographics

History of Christianity

See also: History of Christianity in England

Saint George is recognised as the patron saint of England and the flag of England consists of his cross. Prior to Edward III, the patron saint was St Edmund. St Alban is also honoured as England's first martyr. Other notable saints from the early period of Christianity in England include Saint Ethelbert and Saint Morwenna.

Protestantism

Church of England (Anglicanism)

Main article: Church of England

The established church of the realm is the Church of England, whose supreme governor is the British monarch, currently King Charles III. In practice, the church is governed by its bishops under the authority of Parliament. Twenty-six of the church's 42 bishops are Lords Spiritual, representing the church in the House of Lords. The dioceses of England are divided between the two provinces of Canterbury and York, both of whose archbishops are considered primates.

The church regards itself as the continuation of the Catholic church introduced by St Augustine's late 6th-century mission to Kent as part of the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England, although this is disputed owing to procedural and doctrinal changes introduced by the 16th-century English Reformation, particularly the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer. In 2010, the Church of England counted 25 million baptised members out of the 41 million Christians in Great Britain's population of about 60 million. In 2009, it claimed to baptise one in eight newborn children.

In 2018, research conducted by YouGov found that 56% of Christians in England identified as members of the Church of England. The same study found that 63% of those identifying with the Church of England "never or hardly" attend church. In 2016, according to a research survey, 19.8% of the population of England and Wales identified as Anglican; additionally half of those who reported being raised Anglican identified as 'No religion.' Generally, anyone in England may marry or be buried at their local parish church, whether or not they have been baptised in the church. Actual attendance has declined steadily since 1890, with around one million, or 10% of the baptised population attending Sunday services on a regular basis, defined as once a month or more. Three million- roughly 15%- join Christmas Eve and Christmas services. In 2012, there were around 18 000 active and ordained clergy.

The Free Church of England is another Anglican denomination which separated from the Church of England in the 19th century in opposition to shifts in doctrine and ceremony which brought the established church closer to Roman Catholicism. The Free Church of England is in communion with the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States and Canada.

Catholicism

Main articles: Catholic Church in England and Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom

The Catholic Church in England and Wales is directed by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, whose current president is Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster. To highlight the historical Catholic continuity of Nichols' office, dating back to Pope Gregory I's appointment of St. Augustine and that pope's sequent bestowal of the pallium on the appointee, the installation rites of pre-Reformation Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury and earlier Archbishops of Westminster were used at his installation as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

In 1851, the Catholic Church was formally forbidden from using the names of the Anglican dioceses by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act. It is divided among five provinces headed by the archbishops of Westminster, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Southwark in England and Cardiff in Wales. The Catholic Church considers itself a continuation of the earliest Celtic Christian communities, although its formal hierarchy needed to be refounded by the Gregorian mission to the Saxon kingdoms in the 6th and 7th centuries and again following the English Reformation.

In 1766, Papal recognition of George III as the legitimate ruler of Great Britain opened the way for the Catholic Emancipation, easing and ultimately eliminating the anti-Catholic Penal Laws and Test Acts. This process sometimes faced great popular opposition, as during the 1780 Gordon Riots in London. Daniel O'Connell was the first Catholic member of Parliament. Considering the "actual condition of Catholicism in England," the number of Catholics, and the obstacles "removed which chiefly opposed" it, Pope Pius IX issued in 1850 the bull Universalis Ecclesiae to restore "the normal diocesan hierarchy." More recently, the royal family has been permitted to marry Roman Catholics without fear of being disqualified from succession to the throne.

The number of Catholics peaked in the 1960s, but has been on a gradual decline ever since. Recent immigration from Catholic countries, particularly Poland and Lithuania, has slowed the church's decline. Polling in 2009 suggested there were about 5.2 million Catholics in England and Wales, about 9.6% of the population, concentrated in the northwest. In 2018, research conducted by YouGov found that 17% of all Christians in England identified as Catholic. In 2016, 8.3% of the population of England and Wales identified Catholic. In 2007, some studies showed that weekly attendance at Catholic masses exceeded that of the Anglican services.

Other

No other church in England has more than a million members, with most quite small.

Pentecostal churches are growing and, in terms of church attendance, are now third after the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. There are three main denominations of Pentecostal churches: the Assemblies of God in Great Britain (part of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship), the Apostolic Church, and the Elim Pentecostal Church. Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783, which today has 23 congregations in England. There is also a growing number of independent, charismatic churches that encourage Pentecostal practices at part of their worship, such as Kingsgate Community Church in Peterborough, which started with 9 people in 1988 and now has a congregation in excess of 1,500.

Various forms of Protestantism developed from the ferment of the English Civil War onwards. The Quakers (formally, the Religious Society of Friends) were founded by George Fox in the 1640s. Following the Great Ejection of 1662, about a tenth of Church of England ministers gave up their livings to lead the newly formed dissenting churches. Notable dissenting groups were the Presbyterians, the Independents (or Congregationalists) and the Baptists. In the 18th century some Presbyterians favoured ideas known as Rational Dissent which evolved into, among others, Unitarianism, which still has more than 100 congregations in the 21st century.

Methodism developed from the 18th century onwards. The Methodist revival was started in England by a group of men including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles as a movement within the Church of England, but developed as a separate denomination after John Wesley's death. The primary church in England is the Methodist Church of Great Britain. The Salvation Army dates back to 1865, when it was founded in East London by William and Catherine Booth. Its international headquarters are still in London, near St Paul's Cathedral. There is one Mennonite congregation in England, the Wood Green Mennonite Church in London.

Most Greek Orthodox Church parishes fall under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, based in London and led by Nikitas, the Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain. Created in 1932, it is the diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople that covers England, Wales and Scotland. A Greek Orthodox community already existed at the time the UK was formed, worshipping in the Imperial Russian Embassy in London. in 1837, an autonomous community was set up in Finsbury Park in London. In 1850, the first new church was built, on London Street in the city.

In 1882, St Sophia Cathedral was constructed in London, in order to cope with the growing influx of Orthodox immigrants. By the outbreak of World War II, there were large Orthodox communities in London, Manchester and Liverpool, each focused on its own church. World War II and its aftermath also saw a large expansion among the Orthodox Communities. Today, there are seven churches bearing the title of Cathedral in London as well as in Birmingham (the Dormition of the Mother of God and St Andrew) and Leicester.

In addition to these, there are eighty-one churches and other places where worship is regularly offered, twenty-five places (including university chaplaincies) where the divine liturgy is celebrated on a less regular basis, four chapels (including that of the Archdiocese), and two monasteries. As is traditional within the Orthodox Church, the bishops have a considerable degree of autonomy within the Archdiocese. The Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas in Toxteth, Liverpool, was built in 1870. It is an enlarged version of St Theodore's church in Constantinople and is a Grade II Listed building.

There are Russian Orthodox groups in England. In 1962, Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh founded and was for many years the bishop, archbishop and then metropolitan bishop of the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh, the Moscow Patriarchate's diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. It is the most numerous Russian Orthodox group in the country. There are also the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia churches and some churches and communities belonging to the Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe's Episcopal Vicariate in the UK.

As well as the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, there are also the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church all in London and a non-canonical Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Manchester. The Antiochian Orthodox Church have the St. George's Cathedral in London and a number of parishes across England.

All Coptic Orthodox parishes fall under the jurisdiction of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria Pope of Alexandria. The Coptic Orthodox Church in Britain and Ireland is divided into three main districts: Ireland, Scotland, and North England; the Midlands and its affiliated areas; and South Wales. There is one Patriarchal Exarchate at Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Most British converts belong to the British Orthodox Church, which is canonically part of the Coptic Orthodox Church. There is also the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in London. There is also the Armenian Apostolic Church in London.

Islam

Further information: Islam in England

At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 3,801,186 Muslims lived in England, or 6.7% of the population. The Muslim population had grown by over a million compared to the 2011 census.

At the 2011 Census, 2.7 million Muslims lived in England, where they formed 5.0% of the population.

Although Islam is generally thought of as being a recent arrival to the country, there has been contact with Muslims for many centuries. One example is the decision of Offa, an eighth-century King of Mercia, one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms existing at that time, to have coins minted with an Islamic inscription on them—copies of coins issued by the near-contemporary Muslim ruler Al-Mansur. It is thought that they were minted to facilitate trade with the expanding Islamic empire in Spain.

Muslim scholarship was well known among the learned in England by 1386, when Chaucer was writing. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, there is among the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury, a 'Doctour of Phisyk' whose learning included Razi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina, Arabic ابن سينا) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Arabic ابن رشد). Ibn Sina's canon of medicine was a standard text for medical students well into the 17th century.

Today Islam is the second largest religion in England. In 2011, about 38% of English Muslims lived in London, where they made up 12.4% of the population. There are also large numbers of Muslims in Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford, Luton, Slough, Leicester and the mill towns of Northern England such as Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Oldham.

Notable mosques include the East London Mosque, London Central Mosque, Al-Rahma Mosque, Jamea Masjid, Birmingham Central Mosque, Finsbury Park Mosque, Al Mahdi Mosque, London Markaz and Markazi Mosque.

Judaism

Further information: Jews in England

Until the 20th century, Judaism was the only noticeable non-Christian religion having first appeared in historical records during the Norman Conquest of 1066. From 1290 to 1656, Judaism did not officially exist in England due to an outright expulsion in 1290 and official restrictions that were not lifted until 1656, though historical records show that some Jews came back to England during the early part of the 17th century prior to the lifting of the restriction. Now, the presence of the Jewish culture and Jews in England today is one of the largest in the world.

Baháʼí Faith

See also: Baháʼí Faith in England

The Baháʼí Faith started with the earliest mentions of the predecessor of the Baháʼí Faith, the Báb, in The Times in November 1845, only a little over a year after the Báb first stated his mission. Today there are Baháʼí communities across the country from Carlisle to Cornwall.

Dharmic religions

Main article: Dharmic religions

Hinduism

Further information: Hinduism in England

Many early Hindus in England were students in the 19th century. Since then, there have been three main times when Hindus moved to England.

Before India's Independence in 1947, very few Hindus lived in England, and most were there only for a short time. In the 1970s, many Hindus came to England after leaving Uganda. At first, most were from Punjabi and Gujarati families, but by 2000, Hindus of many different backgrounds lived in England.

England is also home to many Hindus from Sri Lanka, most of whom are Tamils. More recently, since the 1990s, Hindus have come to England as refugees from Sri Lanka and professionals from India. There are also English people who practice Hinduism now, either by converting or by being born into Hindu families.

Sikhism

Further information: Sikhism in England

In 1911, the first Sikh temple, called a Gurdwara, was built in Putney, London.

The first large group of Sikhs moved to England in the 1950s. Most were men from the Punjab looking for jobs in factories and textile mills. They settled mainly in London, Birmingham, and West Yorkshire. Later, many Sikhs from East Africa also moved to England because they had to leave due to unsafe conditions caused by leaders like Idi Amin.

Buddhism

Further information: Buddhism in England

Buddhism first influenced England through connections with South East Asia. Early links were with the Theravada traditions from places like Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. In the 1880s, a group was formed to translate Buddhist writings into English.

In 1924, a Buddhist group was started in London, and in 1926, a temple for Theravada Buddhists was founded. Interest in Buddhism grew slowly. In the 1950s, more people became interested in Zen Buddhism.

In the 1970s, a group following the Thai Forest Tradition of a Buddhist teacher named Ajahn Chah was started at Chithurst Buddhist Monastery in West Sussex, and later, similar temples were opened in other parts of the country.

Modern paganism

Main article: Modern paganism in the United Kingdom

In 2011, more people in England said they were Pagan than ever before. Many followed Wicca, a religion started in England, or Druidry, and Heathenry.

Wicca

Wicca began in England during the 1900s and became well-known as Wicca from the 1960s onward.

Heathenry

Main article: Heathenry in the United Kingdom

Heathenry is inspired by old beliefs from Germanic tribes. In 2011, over 1,800 people called themselves Heathen. One big group is called Asatru UK, which had many members online.

Druidism

Long ago, Celtic beliefs were common in England. Neo-Druidism started in the 1700s. In 2011, thousands of people in England and Wales said they were Druids.

Other religions

England is home to many different beliefs besides the main ones. Some of these include Spiritualism, Ravidassia religion, Rastafari, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. Others are Satanism, Shinto, New Age, Scientology, and Traditional African religion. There are also Animism, Druze, Confucianism, Thelema, Vodun, Eckankar, Brahma Kumari, Occult, and Reconstructionism.

Historical religions

Many different faiths were practiced in the areas that later became England long ago. These faiths are often called pagan, but they were replaced when Christianity spread to the region.

Gallo-Roman religion

When the Roman Empire ruled over the land, Gallo-Roman religion developed. It mixed the local beliefs of the Brythonic peoples with Roman ways. The Romans did not allow certain religious leaders called druids to practice their traditions.

People still honored old gods, like mixing them with Roman gods. For example, they honored a god called Ancasta but linked him with the Roman god Mars. Some new religions from faraway places also became popular, especially among wealthy people in cities.

Germanic paganism

Later, people from Europe came to live in England and brought their own beliefs called Anglo-Saxon paganism. After some of them turned to Christianity, Vikings arrived from Scandinavia with their own traditions.

Notable places of worship

England has many important buildings for different religions, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, gurdwaras, shrines, temples, and kingdom halls. These buildings are special for people’s beliefs and also attract visitors.

Some well-known places include the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, Bevis Marks Synagogue, Birmingham Central Mosque, Canterbury Cathedral, and St Paul's Cathedral, among many others. These buildings show the rich history and variety of faiths in England.

Irreligion

See also: Irreligion in the United Kingdom

In 2021, about 36.7% of people in England said they had no religion. This is more than in 2011, when it was 24.7%, and much more than in 2001, when it was 14.6%. Some places in England have even more people with no religion. For example, Brighton and Hove had 55.2%, Norwich had 53.5%, and Bristol and Hastings each had 51.4%.