Religion in Europe

Europe is the only region projected to see a decline in its total population between 2010 and 2050. Although Christians will continue to be the largest religious group in the region, Europe's Christian population is expected to drop by about 100 million people, falling from 553 million in 2010 to 454 million in 2050.

How religious is Europe? Do Europeans believe in God? How many atheists are there in Europe?

The number of Christians in Europe is forecast to drop by about 100 million by 2050, while the share of Muslims and smaller religious minorities will increase.

Fifty years ago, a book by Thomas Kuhn altered the way we look at the philosophy behind science, as well as introducing the much abused phrase 'paradigm shift'.

The history of the papacy, the office held by the pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church, according to Catholic doctrine, spans from the time of Peter to the present day.

The Great Schism, also known as the East-West Schism, was the event that divided "Chalcedonian" Christianity into Western (Roman) Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Though normally dated to 1054, when Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael I excommunicated each other, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between the two bodies of churches.

Watch video lessons about wars of religion and learn about the 80 Years' War, the German Peasant Wars, the Peace of Augsburg, and more. These lessons are just a portion of our AP European History course.

Europe has modernized and shed its religious roots--or so we're led to believe. There is grave danger in believing this.

During the period of 1525 until 1648, Europe was plagued by wars of religion. It is important to recognize, however, that while religion was given as the reason for war, there were many other reasons as well. These included land, money and economics, political power, natural resources, and more.

Within only a few years of its establishment, Christianity soon found fertile ground to grow in Europe. For almost two thousands years the belief would flourish, only rarely challenged by outside beliefs, until new influences, especially from within, slowly caused a decline in the popularity of the religion in Europe.

Out of love for the truth and from desire to elucidate it, the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology, and ordinary lecturer therein at Wittenberg, intends to defend the following statements and to dispute on them in that place. Therefore he asks that those who cannot be present and dispute with him orally shall do so in their absence by letter. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences (original Latin: Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum) were written by Martin Luther in and are widely regarded as the initial catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. The disputation protests against clerical abuses, especially nepotism, simony, usury, pluralism, and the sale of indulgences. It is generally believed that, according to university custom, on 31 October 1517, Luther posted the ninety-five theses, which he had composed in Latin, on the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg.

The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era. In northern and central Europe, reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin and Henry VIII challenged papal authority and questioned the Catholic Church's ability to define Christian practice.

A TYPICAL Protestant view of European religious history might go like this. In medieval times, the Roman Catholic church grew increasingly corrupt and impervious to criticism. Then came the Reformation, with its new breath of freedom and tolerance. After a brief fightback that culminated in the ghastly Thirty Years War in 1618-48, Europe moved smoothly towards the Enlightenment and today's ideal of secular tolerance. It was all quite unlike, for example, Islam and the horrors of the Ottoman empire.

Religion in Europe has been a major influence on today's society art, culture, philosophy and law. The largest religion in Europe for at least a millennium and a half has been Christianity. Three countries in Southeastern Europe have Muslim majorities. Ancient European religions included veneration for deities such as Zeus. Modern revival movements of these religions include Heathenism, Rodnovery, Romuva, Druidry, Wicca, and others. Smaller religions include Indian religions, Judaism, and some East Asian religions, which are found in their largest groups in Britain, France, and Kalmykia.