Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

is the largest religion in

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in ...

, with

Nauru Congregational Church The Nauru Congregational Church (NCC) is the largest religious denomination in Nauru, claiming as members approximately 60% of Nauru's population of about 10,000.Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, and the remainder are

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

.International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Nauru
United States

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs (DRL) is a bureau within the United States Department of State. The bureau is under the purview of the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. DRL's resp ...

(September 14, 2007). ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

.'' The largest denomination is the

Nauru Congregational Church The Nauru Congregational Church (NCC) is the largest religious denomination in Nauru, claiming as members approximately 60% of Nauru's population of about 10,000.Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

Taoist Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Tao ...

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

, or nonreligious. The largely Christian communities of Tuvaluan and

I-Kiribati The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan. Ethno ...

expatriates were repatriated in late 2006 following the near cessation of phosphate mining in the country. The

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...

said they had small numbers of followers among the native population.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

(LDS Church) reported 126 members in a single congregation in Nauru. Nauru missionary 1916-17

Nauruan indigenous religion Nauruan indigenous religion is an indigenous religion of the Nauruans. Worldview An offering to the female deity Eijebong was made. Dead spirits are believed to be invoked through trances by a medium, and those spirits were said to be living in t ...

was the predominant religion in Nauru before the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when foreign

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

introduced Christianity to the island. There are a few active Christian missionary organisations, including representatives of

Anglicanism Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

, and

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. According to data from Pew Research, the religions of

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...

, and

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

had a small presence in the island, with about 0.1% of the population (fewer than ten people), adhering to each faith. With the exception of detainees in

Nauru Regional Processing Centre The Nauru Regional Processing Centre is an offshore Australian immigration detention facility in use from 2001 to 2008, from 2012 to 2019, and from September 2021. It is located on the South Pacific island nation of Nauru and run by the Gover ...

, in which majority are Muslims, with significant minority of Buddhists and Hindus, although the population were slowly decreasing due to re-settlement program by the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Governmen ...

Religious freedom

The

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these pr ...

establishes the freedom of conscience and expression, although it provides that these rights may be limited by any law which is "reasonably required".
International Religious Freedom Report 2017 § Nauru
' US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Religious groups are required to register with the government in order to proselytize, build houses of worship, hold religious services, or officiate marriages. As of 2014, religious groups are required to have 750 members to register. According to local religious leaders, in practice the only activity which is restricted for unregistered groups is marriage officiation. Religious groups are allowed to operate private schools. In public schools, religious groups are allowed to provide religious studies courses once a week during school hours. Students are expected to attend courses pertaining to their chosen religious denomination; other students are expected to use the time as an independent study period. According to a 2017 US government report, there are no significant societal limits on religious freedom in Nauru. In the past, some elements of the Nauru Protestant and Roman Catholic communities have occasionally voiced discomfort with religious groups they perceived as foreign, in particular the LDS Church and the

References

{{Oceania topic, Religion in

Religious freedom

See also

References