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According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2005,{{cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf|title=Eurobarometer on Social Values, Science and technology 2005 - page 11|accessdate=2007-05-05}}
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The religious situation in the German Empire about 1895. Red and pink areas are predominantly Protestant, blue areas predominantly Catholic. The distribution within the borders of modern-day Germany remains roughly the same today.
Christianity is the major religion, with the Protestant Evangelical Church in Germany (particularly in the north and east) comprising 30.8 % of the population and Roman Catholics (particularly in the south and west) 31.4 %EKD: Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland - Christen in Deutschland 2005. In total 64.3 percent of the people officially belong to a Christian denomination, although most of them take no part in church life except at such events as weddings and funerals. Sunday church attendance as reported annually by the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches has dropped to about 6 percent in 2005[citation needed]. 1.7 percent of the population are Orthodox ChristiansEKD: Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland - Christen in Deutschland 2005 composed of mostly Greek and Serbian immigrants in Germany.
Independent and congregational churches exist in all larger towns and many smaller ones, but most such churches are small. One of these is the confessional Lutheran Church called Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany.
Roman Catholicism was the sole established religion in the country in the 15th century, but the Reformation changed this drastically. In 1517 Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church as he saw it as a corruption of Christian faith. Through this, he altered the course of European and world history and established Protestantism. Before World War II, about two-thirds of the German population was Protestant and one-third was Roman Catholic. In the north and northeast of Germany especially, Protestants dominated. In the separated West Germany between 1945 and 1990, Catholics had a small majority since the 1980s. Protestant areas got much more affected by secularism than predominantly Catholic areas. The predominantly non-religious states (Hamburg and the East German states) used to be Lutheran strongholds.
In eastern Germany both religious observance and affiliation are much lower than in the rest of the country after forty years of Communist rule. The government of the German Democratic Republic encouraged an atheist worldview through institutions such as Jugendweihen (youth consecrations), secular coming-of-age ceremonies akin to Christian confirmation which all young people were strongly encouraged to attend (and disadvantaged socially if they did not). The average church attendance is now one of the lowest in the world, with only 5% attending at least once per week, compared to 14% in the rest of the country according to a recent study. The number of christenings, religious weddings and funerals is also lower than in the West.
There is a non-religious majority in Hamburg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt only 19.7 percent belong to the two big denominations of the countryhttp://www.ekd.de/download/kimi_2004.pdf page 7. This is the state where Martin Luther was born. ==
As of 2006, according to U.S. Department of State, approximately 3.2 million Muslims (mostly of Turkish descent) live in Germany. This figure includes the different denominations of Islam as well as religions thought to be forms of Islam by most Germans who are even aware of them, such as Alevites. Lately there have been heated discussions about the question of whether Muslim women in public service, such as schoolteachers, should be allowed to wear headscarves to work or not.
Today Germany, especially its capital Berlin, has the fastest growing Jewish community worldwide. Circa ninety thousand Jews from the former Eastern Bloc, mostly from ex-Soviet Union countries, settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin wall. This is mainly due to a German government policy which basically grants an immigration ticket to anyone from the CIS and the Baltic states with Jewish heritage, and the fact that today\'s Germans are seen as significantly more accepting of Jews than many people in the ex-Soviet realm. Some of the about 60,000 long-time resident German Jews have expressed some mixed feelings about this immigration that they perceive as making them a minority not only in their own country but also in their own community. Prior to Nazism, about 600,000 Jews lived in Germany, with familiar background going back to Roman times or even earlier. Many Jews from Russia and other former communist countries in Germany adhere to Reform Judaism.
The German constitution guarantees freedom of faith and religion. It also states that no one may be discriminated against due to their faith or religious opinions. However, unlike some other countries, cooperation between the state and religious communities is entirely in keeping with the German constitution. Religious communities that are of considerable size and stability and are loyal to the constitution can be recognized as "corporations under public law". This gives them certain privileges, for example being able to give religious instruction in state schools to adherents\' children and having membership fees collected by the German Finanzamt (the German equivalent of the Internal Revenue Service) or by themselves. Such Church tax is levied if a person lists a religion on their tax form or is listed as member in the population registry. It amounts to between 8 or 9% of the income tax. The status mainly applies to the Roman Catholic Church, the mainline Protestant EKD, and Jewish communities. There have been numerous discussions of allowing other religious groups like Jehovah\'s Witnesses and Muslims into this system as well. The Muslim efforts were hampered by the Muslims\' own disorganized state in Germany, with many small rivaling organizations and no central leadership, which does not fit well into a legal frame that was originally created with well-organized, large Christian churches in mind.
In 2005 the local government in the city of Paderborn became embroiled in a controversy whereby a number of Baptist families refused to send their children to any mainstream school or accepted substitute, preferring homeschooling with a strong religious theme. It is a requirement of German law that every child be educated in a state school or an acceptable alternative. The local government acted to force the parents to comply with the law, but to no avail - firstly warnings, then fines, then brief custodial sentences did little to deter them. Eventually, in August 2005, the city took the parents to court, and the parents lost custody of the children. The legal argument behind this decision was the balancing between the religious freedom of the parents and the freedom to be educated and to have equal opportunities in life of the children. This was preceded by a similar case in the nearby city of Gütersloh in 2004.
Church and state are separate, but there is cooperation in many fields, most importantly in the social sector. See Status of religious freedom in Germany and Separation of church and state in Germany.
Also of note is that Germany hosts one of only seven Bahá\'í Houses of Worship in the world. Completed in 1964, it is located at the foot of the Taunus Mountains in the village of Langenhain (close to Hofheim am Taunus), approximately 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) west of Frankfurt.
More than in most other countries the churches are actively involved in disseminating information and warnings about sects and cults (the German word Sekte is used in both senses) and new religious movements. The state churches are generally regarded as experts regarding religious subjects and such information is expected from them by the public. In public opinion, minor religious groups are often referred to as Sekten, that can both refer to destructive cults but also to all religious movements which are not Christian or different from the Roman Catholicism and the mainstream Protestantism. Mainstream Orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims are usually not referred to as Sekten either.
When classifying religious groups, the Roman Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant EKD use a three-step of "Churches", "free-churches" and Sekten [1]
Every Protestant Landeskirche (church whose canonical jurisdiction extends over one or several states, or Länder) and Catholic episcopacy has a Sektenbeauftragte (Sekten referee) where information about religious movements may be obtained.
Religions in Germany: Listed are 2006 estimates by the Religionswissenschaftlicher Medien- Informationsdienst e. V. (REMID) [2] for groups with more than 10,000 adherents:
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