History Of Religion In The United Kingdom

Religion in the United Kingdom, and in the countries that preceded it, has been dominated for over 1,000 years by various forms of Christianity, replacing Romano-British religions, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon paganism as the primary religion. Religious affiliations of United Kingdom citizens are recorded by regular surveys, the four major ones being the national decennial census, the Labour Force Survey, the British Social Attitudes survey and the European Social Survey.

Results of the 2021 Census for England and Wales (that is, not including Scotland and Northern Ireland), which asked the question "What is your religion?", showed that Christianity is the largest religion, followed by Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism in terms of number of adherents. Among Christians, Anglicans are the most common denomination, followed by Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. This, and the relatively large number of individuals with nominal or no religious affiliations, has led commentators to variously describe the United Kingdom as a multi-faith and secularised society. Other major surveys which ask a differently worded question find a majority of people in the UK do not belong to a religion, with Christianity the largest religion.

British society is one of the most secularised in the world and in many surveys determining religious beliefs of the population Agnosticism, nontheism, atheism, secular humanism, and non-affiliation are views shared by large percentages of Britons. The official religion of the United Kingdom is Christianity, with the Church of England being the state church of its largest constituent region, England. The Church of England defines itself as neither fully Reformed (Protestant) nor fully Catholic. The Monarch of the United Kingdom is the Supreme Governor of the Church. Some British people and organisations in the United Kingdom, such as Humanists UK, hold the view that the UK should become a secular state, with no official or established religion. A survey published in April 2022 also revealed that whereas a fifth of those polled thought that Anglican bishops should remain in the House of Lords, three-fifths thought they (as unelected clerics) did not have a place in a modern legislature and another fifth were "don't knows." Commenting on this, Martyn Percy, former dean of Christ Church College, noted that "To the extent that the Church f Englandretains unique privileges in comparison with any other religious organizations, it can be said that the UK has religious freedom – but, embarrassingly, not religious equality."

The United Kingdom was formed by the union of previously independent countries in 1707, and consequently most of the largest religious groups do not have UK-wide organisational structures. While some groups have separate structures for the individual countries of the United Kingdom, others have a single structure covering England and Wales or Great Britain. Similarly, due to the relatively recent creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, most major religious groups in Northern Ireland are organised on an all-Ireland basis.

History

Pre-Roman forms of religion in Britain included various forms of ancestor worship and paganism. Little is known about the details of such religions (see British paganism). Forms of Christianity have influenced religious life in what is now the United Kingdom for over 1,400 years. It was introduced by the Romans to what is now England, Wales, and Southern Scotland. The doctrine of Pelagianism, declared heretical in the Council of Carthage (418), originated with a British-born ascetic, Pelagius.

During the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, paganism was re-established; Christianity was again brought to Great Britain by Catholic Church and Irish-Scottish missionaries in the course of the 7th century (see Anglo-Saxon Christianity). In 601 AD, Pope Gregory I ordered images of pagan gods in England to be destroyed, but not the temples, which should instead be used as places of worship of the Christian God. England was nominally Christianised by the end of the 7th century, during which paganism was banned by the Church. Despite this, pagan practices such as leaving votive offerings at standing stones, trees and wells, persisted at least into the 11th century, prompting new penitential laws across England that aimed to suppress the surviving folk beliefs. Insular Christianity as it stood between the 6th and 8th centuries retained some idiosyncrasies in terms of liturgy and calendar, but it had been nominally united with Roman Christianity since at least the Synod of Whitby of 664. Still in the Anglo-Saxon period, the archbishops of Canterbury established a tradition of receiving their pallium from Rome to symbolize the authority of the Pope. Paganism was re-introduced to regions of the British Isles in the 9th century by Scandinavian settlers who established the Kingdom of the Isles and the Danelaw. The timeline for the conversion of the settlers varies, with the Danish leader Guthrum baptised in 878 AD in accordance with the Treaty of Wedmore. Orkney, on other hand, was not nominally Christianised until 995 AD when Olaf Tryggvason ordered that if the earl and his subjects did not convert, he would be killed and the islands ravaged.

The Roman Catholic Church remained the dominant form of Western Christianity in Britain throughout the Middle Ages, but the (Anglican) Church of England became the independent established church in England and Wales in 1534 as a result of the English Reformation.The History of the Church of England
. The Church of England. Retrieved 23 November 2008. It retains a representation in the UK Parliament and the British monarch is its Supreme Governor.

In Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, established in a separate Scottish Reformation in the sixteenth century, is recognized as the national church. It is not subject to state control and the British monarch is an ordinary member, required to swear an oath to "maintain and preserve the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government" upon his or her accession.

The adherence to the Catholic Church continued at various levels in different parts of Britain, especially among recusants and in the north of England, but most strongly in Ireland. This would expand in Great Britain, partly due to Irish immigration in the nineteenth century, the Catholic emancipation and the Restoration of the English hierarchy.

Particularly from the mid-seventeenth century, forms of Protestant nonconformity, including Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers and, later, Methodists, grew outside of the established church. The (Anglican) Church in Wales was disestablished in 1920 and, as the (Anglican) Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1870 before the partition of Ireland, there is no established church in Northern Ireland.

The Jews in England were expelled in 1290 and only emancipated in the 19th century. British Jews had numbered fewer than 10,000 in 1800 but around 120,000 after 1881 when Russian Jews settled permanently in Britain.

The substantial immigration to the United Kingdom after World War II has contributed to the growth of foreign faiths, especially of Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. Buddhism in the United Kingdom experienced growth partly due to immigration and partly due to conversion (especially when including Secular Buddhism).

As elsewhere in the western world, religious demographics have become part of the discourse on multiculturalism, with Britain variously described as a post-Christian society, as "multi-faith", or as secularised. Scholars have suggested multiple possible reasons for the decline, but have not agreed on their relative importance. Martin Wellings lays out the "classical model" of secularisation, while noting that it has been challenged by some scholars.

The familiar starting-point, a classical model of secularisation, argues that religious faith becomes less plausible and religious practice more difficult in advanced industrial and urbanized societies. The breakdown or disruption of traditional communities and norms of behaviour; the spread of a scientific world-view diminishing the scope of the supernatural and the role of God; increasing material affluence promoting self-reliance and this-worldly optimism; and greater awareness and toleration of different creeds and ideas, encouraging religious pluralism and eviscerating commitment to a particular faith, all form components of the case for secularisation. Applied to the British churches in general by Steve Bruce and to Methodism in particular by Robert Currie, this model traces decline back to the Victorian era and charts in the twentieth century a steady ebbing of the sea of faith.

Statistics

Religious affiliations

In the 2011 census, Christianity was the largest religion, stated as their affiliation by 60% of the total population.

Although there was no UK-wide data in the 2001 or the 2011 census on adherence to individual Christian denominations, since they are asked only in the Scottish and in the Northern Irish Censuses, using the same principle as applied in the 2001 census, a survey carried out in the end of 2008 by Ipsos MORI and based on a scientifically robust sample, found the population of England and Wales to be 47.0% Anglican, 9.6% Catholic and 8.7% other Christians; 4.8% were Muslim, 3.4% were members of other religions. 5.3% were Agnostics, 6.8% were Atheists and 15.0% were not sure about their religious affiliation or refused to answer to the question.

The 2009 British Social Attitudes Survey, which covers Great Britain but not Northern Ireland, indicated that over 50 per cent would self-classify as not religious at all, 19.9 per cent were part of the Church of England, 9.3% non-denominational Christian, 8.6% Catholic, 2.2% Presbyterian/Church of Scotland, 1.3% Methodist, 0.53% Baptist, 1.17% other Protestant, 0.23% United Reformed Church/Congregational, 0.06% Free Presbyterian, 0.03% Brethren Christian and 0.41% other Christian.

In a 2016 survey conducted by BSA (British Social Attitudes) on religious affiliation; 53% of respondents indicated ' no religion' and 41% indicated they were Christians, while 6% affiliated with non-Christian religions (Islam, Hinduism, Judaism etc.)

Eurostat's Eurobarometer survey in December 2018 found that 53.6% of UK's population is Christian, while 6.2% belong to other religions and 40.2% are atheists (30.3% Agnostics, 9.9% Anti-theists). The May 2019 Special Eurobarometer found that 50% were Christians (14% Protestants, 13% Catholics, 7% Orthodox and 16% other Christians), 37% atheist (9% anti-theists, 28% 'nonbelievers and agnostics'), 5% Muslims (3% Sunnis, 1% Shias, 1% other Muslims), 1% Sikhs, 1% Hindus, fewer than 1% Jews, fewer than 1% Buddhists, 4% other religions, 1% didn't know, and 1% refused to answer. The same year Pew Research center estimated that 73% of people in UK were Christian while 23% were unaffiliated and 4% were other religion or did not know.

The wording of the question affects the outcome of polls as is apparent when comparing the results of the Scottish census with that of the English and Welsh census. An ICM poll for ''The Guardian'' in 2006 asked the question "Which religion do you yourself belong to?" with a response of 64% stating "Christian" and 26% stating "none". In the same survey, 63% claimed they are not religious with just 33% claiming they are.  Retrieved on 7 May 2012 This suggests that the religious UK population identify themselves as having Christian beliefs, but maybe not as active "church-goers".

Religions other than Christianity, such as Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism, have established a presence in the United Kingdom, both through immigration and by attracting converts. Others that have done so include the Baháʼí Faith, Modern paganism, and the Rastafari movement -which has 5000 followers in the UK as of a 2001 census.

The European Social Survey, carried out between 2014 and 2016, found that 70% of people between 16 and 29 were not religious.

The 2022 Talking Jesus report (a partnership between Alpha, the Evangelical Alliance, HOPE Together, Luis Palau Association and Kingsgate Community Church) describes the current state of faith in the UK: 48% of the population described themselves as ‘Christian’ of which 6% described themselves as ‘practising Christians’.

Historical trends since 1900

*Sources: Based on Historical data/information, Religious Data since 1980s, Eurobarometer 2015 Data, and 2001 & 2011 National U.K. Census. Specifications: Catholics include directs Roman Catholics (8%) and Anglo-Catholics in obye to the Pope and Church of England (5%), Protestants include the majority of Anglicans (Traditional Anglicanism, Anglican Evangelical versions and part of Anglo-Catholics), Mainline Protestant Churches like Methodists or Presbyterians (7%) and Evangelical Protestants (4%), Other Christians historically were British Restoriationist Churches inspired by Mainline Protestant denominations (knowed as ''Free Churches''), today the most numerous Christian minorities are Mormons (0.3%) and Jehovah Witness (0.2%), also including Orthodox Christianity. Non-Religious since 2000s data were an adjusted by the specified non-religious and most of the non-response percent. Other religions: Islam in the United Kingdom, Hinduism in the United Kingdom, Sikhism in the United Kingdom.

Censuses

The statistics for current religion (not religion of upbringing where also asked) from the 2011 census and the corresponding statistics from the 2001 census are set out in the tables below.

;Religious affiliation (%) in the UK according to the censuses 2001–2

Surveys

Religious affiliations of UK citizens are recorded by regular surveys, the four major ones being the UK Census, the Labour Force Survey, the British Social Attitudes survey and the European Social Survey. The different questions asked by these surveys produced different results:

*The census for England and Wales asked the question "What is your religion?". In 2001 14.81% and in 2011 around a quarter (25.1%) of the population said they had "none" and 70% stated they were Christian.
*The census for Scotland asked the question "What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?".Tom Geoghegan
"Census: How religious is the UK?"
, ''BBC News Magazine'', 21 February 2011, retrieved 31 January 2011. In 2001 27.55% and in 2011 36.7% selected "none" and 53.8% stated they were Christian.
*The Labour Force Survey asked the question "What is your religion even if you are not currently practising?" with a response of 15.7% selecting "no religion" in 2004 and 22.4% selecting "no religion" in 2010.
*The British Social Attitudes survey asked the question "Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?" with 53% selecting "no religion" in 2016.
*The European Social Survey asked the question "Which religion or denomination do you belong to at present?" with 50.54% of respondents selecting "no religion" in 2002 and 52.68% selecting "no religion" in 2008.

Other surveys:

*In 1983, in a large public opinion survey, almost a third of Britons said they believed in Hell and the Devil. In Northern Ireland, 91 per cent of people said they believed in sin. This was reported in ''The Observer'' on 28 February 1983.
*In 2018, according to a study jointly conducted by London's St Mary's University's Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society and the Institut Catholique de Paris, and based on data from the European Social Survey 2014–2016 collected on a sample of 560, among 16 to 29 years-old British people 21% were Christians (10% Catholic, 7% Anglican, 2% other Protestant and 2% other Christian), 6% were Muslims, 3% were of other religions, and 70% were not religious. The data was obtained from two questions, one asking "Do you consider yourself as belonging to any particular religion or denomination?" to the full sample and the other one asking "Which one?" to the sample who replied with "Yes".

The British Social Attitudes surveys and the European Social Surveys are fielded to adult individuals. In contrast, the United Kingdom Census and the Labour Force Surveys are household surveys; the respondent completes the questionnaire on behalf of each member of the household, including children, as well as for themselves. The 2010 Labour Force Survey claimed that 54% of children aged from birth to four years were Christian, rising to 59% for children aged between 5 and 9 and 65% for children aged between 10 and 14. The inclusion of children with adult-imposed religions influences the results of the polls.

Other major polls agree with the British Social Attitudes surveys and the European Social Surveys, with a YouGov survey fielded in February 2012 indicating that 43% of respondents claimed to belong to a religion and 76% claimed they were not very religious or not religious at all.  Retrieved on 12 March 2012. An Ipsos MORI survey fielded in August 2003 indicated that 18% of respondents claimed to be "a practising member of an organised religion" and 25% claimed "I am a non-practising member of an organised religion". A 2015 study estimated some 25,000 believers in Christ from a Muslim background, most of whom belong to an evangelical or Pentecostal community.

Religious affiliation (%) in England, Scotland and Wales according to the Annual Population Survey 2007-2016

The Annual Population Survey is a combined statistical survey of households in Great Britain which is conducted quarterly by the Office for National Statistics and combines results from the Labour Force Survey and the English, Welsh and Scottish Labour Force Survey, gathers information about the religious affiliation, reported in the table below. The change in the religious affiliation between the 2010 APS and the 2011 APS is due to a question change, which significantly influenced the final results.

Attendance

Society in the United Kingdom is markedly more secular than it was in the past and the number of churchgoers fell over the second half of the 20th century. The Ipsos MORI poll in 2003 reported that 18% were "a practising member of an organised religion". The Tearfund Survey in 2007 found that only 7% of the population considered themselves as practising Christians. Some 10% attended church weekly and two-thirds had not gone to church in the past year. The Tearfund Survey also found that two-thirds of UK adults (66%) or 32.2 million people had no connection with the Church at present (nor with another religion). These people were evenly divided between those who have been in the past but have since left (16 million) and those who have never been in their lives (16.2 million).

A survey in 2002 found Christmas attendance at Anglican churches in England varied between 10.19% of the population in the diocese of Hereford, down to just 2.16% in Manchester. Church attendance at Christmas in some dioceses was up to three times the average for the rest of the year. Overall church attendance at Christmas has been steadily increasing in recent years; a 2005 poll found that 43 per cent expected to attend a church service over the Christmas period, in comparison with 39% and 33% for corresponding polls taken in 2003 and 2001 respectively.

A December 2007 report by Christian Research showed that the services of the Catholic Church had become the best-attended services of Christian denominations in England, with average attendance at Sunday Mass of 861,000, compared to 852,000 attending Anglican services. Attendance at Anglican services had declined by 20% between 2000 and 2006, while attendance at Catholic services, boosted by large-scale immigration from Poland and Lithuania, had declined by only 13%. In Scotland, attendance at Church of Scotland services declined by 19% and attendance at Catholic services fell by 25%. British Social Attitudes Surveys have shown the proportion of those in Great Britain who consider they "belong to" Christianity to have fallen from 66% in 1983 to 43% in 2009.

In 2012 about 6% of the population of the United Kingdom regularly attended church, with the average age of attendees being 51; in contrast, in 1980, 11% had regularly attended, with an average age of 37. It is predicted that by 2020 attendance will be around 4%, with an average age of 56. This decline in church attendance has forced many churches to close down across the United Kingdom, with the Church of England alone closing 1,500 churches between 1969 and 2002. Their fates include dereliction, demolition, and residential, artistic and commercial conversion. In October 2014 weekly attendance at Church of England services dropped below 1 million for the first time. At Christmas 2014, 2.4 million attended. For that year baptisms were 130,000, down 12% since 2004; marriages were 50,000, down 19%; and funerals 146,000, down 29%. The Church estimated that about 1% of churchgoers were lost to death each year; the Church's age profile suggested that attendances would continue to decline.

One study showed that in 2004 at least 930,000 Muslims attended a mosque at least once a week, just outnumbering the 916,000 regular churchgoers in the Church of England. Muslim sources claim the number of practising Muslims is underestimated as nearly all of them pray at home.

Belief

There is a disparity between the figures for those identifying themselves with a particular religion and for those proclaiming a belief in a God:
*In a 2011 YouGov poll, 34% of UK citizens said they believed in a God or gods.  Retrieved on 7 May 2012
*A Eurobarometer opinion poll in 2010 reported that 37% of UK citizens "believed there is a God", 33% believe there is "some sort of spirit or life force" and 25% answered "I don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force".
*The 2008 European Social Survey suggested that 46.94% of UK citizens never prayed and 18.96% prayed daily.
*A survey in 2007 suggested that 42% of adults resident in the United Kingdom prayed, with one in six praying daily.

Jedi census phenomenon

In the 2001 census, 390,127 individuals (0.7 per cent of total respondents) in England and Wales self-identified as followers of the Jedi faith. This Jedi census phenomenon followed an internet campaign that claimed, incorrectly, that the Jedi belief system would receive official government recognition as a religion if it received enough support in the census. An email in support of the campaign, quoted by BBC News, invited people to "do it because you love Star Wars ... or just to annoy people". The Office for National Statistics revealed the total figure in a press release entitled "390,000 Jedi there are".

Christianity

Forms of Christianity have dominated religious life in what is now the United Kingdom for over 1,400 years. The United Kingdom was formed by the union of previously autonomous states in 1707, and consequently most of the largest religious groups do not have UK-wide organisational structures. While some groups have separate structures for the individual countries of the United Kingdom, others have a single structure covering England and Wales or Great Britain. Similarly, due to the relatively recent creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, most major religious groups in Northern Ireland are organised on an all-Ireland basis.

Protestantism

Anglicanism

The Church of England is the established church in England. Its most senior bishops sit in the national parliament and the Monarch is its supreme governor. It is also the "mother church" of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Church of England separated from the Catholic Church in 1534 and became the established church by Parliament in the Act of Supremacy, beginning a series of events known as the English Reformation. Historically it has been the predominant Christian denomination in England and Wales, in terms of both influence and number of adherents.

The Scottish Episcopal Church, which is part of the Anglican Communion (but not a "daughter church" of the Church of England), dates from the final establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland in 1690, when it split from the Church of Scotland. In the 1920s, the Church in Wales became disestablished and independent from the Church of England, but remains in the Anglican Communion.

During the years 2012 to 2014 the number of members of the Church of England dropped by around 1.7 million.
In 2018, 12% of the population of Great Britain identify as Anglicans, a sharp decline from 1983 when 40% of the population identified as Anglicans.

Baptists

The Baptist Union of Great Britain, despite its name, covers just England and Wales. There is a separate Baptist Union of Scotland and the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland is an all-Ireland organisation. Other Baptist associations also exist in England, such as the Grace Baptist association and the Gospel Standard Baptists.

Charismatics and Pentecostalism

Assemblies of God in Great Britain are part of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship with over 600 churches in Great Britain. Assemblies of God Ireland cover the whole of the island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland. The Apostolic Church commenced in the early part of the 20th century in South Wales and now has over 110 churches across the United Kingdom. Elim Pentecostal Church had over 500 churches across the United Kingdom.

There is also a growing number of independent, charismatic churches that encourage Pentecostal practices as part of their worship. These are broadly grouped together as the British New Church Movement and could number up to 400,000 members. The phenomenon of immigrant churches and congregations that began with the arrival of the HMT ''Empire Windrush'' from the West Indies in 1948 stands as a unique trend. West Indian congregations that started from this time include the Church of God, New Testament Assembly and New Testament Church of God.

Africans began to arrive in the early 1980s and established their own congregations. Foremost among these are Matthew Ashimolowo from Nigeria and his Kingsway International Christian Centre in London that may be the largest church in Western Europe.

Methodism

The Methodist movement traces its origin to John Wesley and the evangelical revival in the 18th century. The British Methodist Church, which has congregations throughout the nation, has around 188,000 members,Piggot, A. (June 2017)
Statistics for Mission
. The Methodist Conference. Accessed 20 October 2018. and 4,110 churches (), though only around 3,000 members in 50 congregations are in Scotland. In the 1960s, the Methodist Church made ecumenical overtures to the Church of England, aimed at church unity. Formally, these failed when they were rejected by the Church of England's General Synod in 1972. However, conversations and co-operation continued, leading on 1 November 2003 to the signing of a covenant between the two churches.

The Methodist Church in Ireland covers the whole of the island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland where it is the fourth-largest denomination.

Other Methodist denominations in Britain include the Salvation Army, founded in 1865; the Free Methodist Church, a holiness church; and the Church of the Nazarene.

Presbyterianism and Congregationalism

The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Reformation of 1560, when it split from the Catholic Church and established itself as a church in the reformed tradition. The church is Calvinist Presbyterian, having no head of faith or leadership group and believing that God invited the church's adherents to worship Jesus. The annual meeting of its general assembly is chaired by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The Church of Scotland celebrates two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as well as five other rites, such as Confirmation and Matrimony. The church adheres to the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith, and is a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

The Presbyterian Church of Wales seceded from the Church of England in 1811 and formally formed itself into a separate body in 1823. The Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland has 31 congregations in Northern Ireland, with the first Presbytery being formed in Antrim in 1725.

With its origins in the 16th century, English Presbyterianism, was initially contained with the Church of England until the Great Ejection of 1662. During the 18th century there were few Presbyterian congregations in England until they were revived by Scots who had moved south. In time, this led to the creation of Presbyterian Church of England in 1876. Its successor, the United Reformed Church (URC), a union of Presbyterian and Congregational churches, consists of about 1383 congregations in England, Scotland and Wales. There are about 600 Congregational churches in the United Kingdom. In England there are three main groups, the Congregational Federation, the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches, and about 100 Congregational churches that are loosely federated with other congregations in the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, or are unaffiliated. In Scotland the churches are mostly members of the Congregational Federation and in Wales which traditionally has a larger number of Congregationalists, most are members of the Union of Welsh Independents.

Quakers

The Britain Yearly Meeting is the umbrella body for the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Great Britain, the Channel Isles and the Isle of Man. It has 14,260 adult members. Northern Ireland comes under the umbrella of the Ireland Yearly Meeting.

Catholicism

The Catholic Church has separate national organisations for England, Wales, and Scotland, which means there is no single hierarchy for the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom. Catholicism is the second largest denomination in England and Wales, with around five million members, mainly in England. There is, however, a single apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, presently Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti. Catholicism is also Scotland's second largest Christian denomination, representing a fifth of the population. In 2021, for the first time since the establishment of the exclave, the Catholic Church attained a plurality of the Northern Irish population. The apostolic nuncio to the whole of Ireland (both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) is Jude Thaddeus Okolo. Members of the Eastern Catholic Churches in the United Kingdom are served by their own clergy and do not belong to the Latin Church dioceses but are still in full communion with the Bishop of Rome.

The number of adherents to the Catholic Church as a percentage of overall population has remained stable. In 2018, 7% of the population identified as Catholics.

Orthodoxy

Orthodox Christianity is a relatively minor faith in the United Kingdom when compared to Protestantism and Catholicism; most Orthodox churches cater to immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and The Middle East.
It is a relatively minor faith among Britons themselves. In 2013 there were roughly 464,000 members of Orthodox churches in the UK.

Eastern Orthodoxy

Adherents of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the United Kingdom are traditionally organized in accordance with patrimonial ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The Russian Orthodox Church has a Diocese of Sourozh, which covers Great Britain and Ireland, and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia also has a diocese of Great Britain and Western Europe. The Greek Orthodox Church is represented by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which has established the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, that covers England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland as well as Malta. The Patriarchate of Antioch has several parishes and missions within the Diocese of the British Isles and Ireland. Other Eastern Orthodox Churches represented in the United Kingdom include the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Oriental Orthodoxy

Adherents of Oriental Orthodox Christianity in the United Kingdom are also traditionally organized in accordance with their patrimonial ecclesiastical jurisdictions, each community having its own parishes and priests. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria has two regional Dioceses in the United Kingdom: the Diocese of Ireland, Scotland, North East England, and the Diocese of the Midlands. Other Oriental Orthodox Churches represented in the United Kingdom include the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The homegrown British Orthodox Church and Celtic Orthodox Church, although both minor, are also represented.

Other Trinitarian denominations

Other denominations and groups include the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Seventh Day Baptists, the Plymouth Brethren, and Newfrontiers.

Non-Trinitarian denominations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

The first missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to proselytise in the British Isles arrived in 1837. By 1900 as many as 100,000 converts had joined the faith, but most of these early members soon emigrated to the United States to join the main body of the church. From the 1950s emigration to the United States began to be discouraged and local congregations grew more rapidly. Today the church claims just over 186,000 members across the United Kingdom, in over 330 local congregations, known as 'wards' or 'branches'. The church also maintains two temples in England, the first opening in the London area in 1958, and the second completed in 1998 in Preston and known as the Preston England Temple. Preston is also the site of the first preaching by LDS missionaries in 1837, and is home to the oldest continually existing Latter Day Saint congregation anywhere in the world. Restored 1994–2000, the Gadfield Elm Chapel in Worcestershire is the oldest extant chapel of the LDS Church.

Other non-Trinitarian denominations

Jehovah's Witnesses had 137,631 "publishers" (a term referring to members actively involved in preaching) in the United Kingdom in 2015. The Church of Christ, Scientist is also represented in the UK.

The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches is the umbrella organisation for Unitarian, Free Christian and other liberal religious congregations in the United Kingdom. The Unitarian Christian Association was formed in 1991.

There are an estimated 18,000 Christadelphians in the UK.

Islam

Estimates in 2009 suggested a total of about 2.4 million Muslims over all the United Kingdom. According to Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the number of Muslims in Britain could be up to 3 million. The vast majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom live in England and Wales: of 1,591,126 Muslims recorded at the 2001 Census, 1,546,626 were living in England and Wales, where they form 3 per cent of the population; 42,557 were living in Scotland, forming 0.8 per cent of the population; and 1,943 were living in Northern Ireland. Between 2001 and 2009 the Muslim population increased roughly 10 times faster than the rest of society.

Most Muslim immigrants to the United Kingdom came from former colonies. The biggest groups of Muslims are of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Arab origins, with the remainder coming from Muslim-dominated areas such as Southwest Asia, Somalia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. During the 18th century, ''lascars'' (sailors) who worked for the British East India Company settled in port towns with local wives. These numbered only 24,037 in 1891 but 51,616 on the eve of World War I. Naval cooks, including Sake Dean Mahomet, also came from what is now the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh. From the 1950s onwards, the growing Muslim population has led to a number of notable Mosques being established, including East London Mosque, London Central Mosque, Manchester Central Mosque, London Markaz, Baitul Futuh of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and Cambridge Central Mosque. According to Kevin Brice, a researcher at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, thousands convert to Islam annually and there are approximately 100,000 converts to Islam in Britain, where they run two mosques.

According to a Labour Force Survey estimate, the total number of Muslims in Great Britain in 2008 was 2,422,000, around 4 per cent of the total population. Between 2004 and 2008, the Muslim population grew by more than 500,000. In 2010, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimated 2,869,000 Muslims in Great Britain.
The largest age-bracket within the British Muslim population were those under the age of 4, at 301,000 in September 2008. The Muslim Council of Britain and the Islamic Forum of Europe

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