Religion
The Church of Denmark (Den danske folkekirke) is state-supported and, according to statistics from January 2006, accounts for about 80% of Denmark's religious affiliation. Denmark has had religious freedom guaranteed since 1849 by the Constitution, and numerous other religions are officially recognised, including several Christian denominations, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and other congregations as well as Forn Siðr, a revival of Scandinavian pagan tradition. The Department of Ecclesiastical Affairs recognizes roughly a hundred religious congregations for tax and legal purposes such as conducting wedding ceremonies.
For historical reasons, there is a formal distinction between 'approved' (godkendte) and 'recognised' (anerkendte) congregations of faith. The latter include 11 traditional denominations, such as Roman Catholics, the Reformed Church, the Mosaic Congregation, Methodists and Baptists, some of whose privileges in the country date hundreds of years back. These have the additional rights of having priests appointed by royal resolution and to christen/name children with legal effect.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Denmark
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“If ... we admit a divinity, why not divine worship? and if worship, why not religion to teach this worship? and if a religion, why not the Christian, if a better cannot be assigned, and it be already established by the laws of our country, and handed down to us from our forefathers?”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practised.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)