National Church Declines, Humanist Society Sees Increase

A new announcement from the National Registry shares some interesting data points when it comes to religious and philosophical organisation membership in Iceland.

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According to their findings, there are now 229,167 people registered in Iceland’s largest religious organisation, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, as of January 9th. Those registered with this church have declined by 550 people since December 2020.

There are also now 14,715 people registered with Iceland’s second-largest religious organisation, the Catholic church. The church has increased by 64 members over the same period of time that the National Church has reduced.

The greatest increase in individual members over this period of time, however, goes to the Humanist Society (Siðmennt), which saw a rise of 649 members. The Ásatrú Society, Iceland’s largest non-Christian religious organisation, also grew by 441 members during this time.

The largest increase by percentage was with the Salvation Army (yes, the Salvation Army is a Christian church), which gained 175 members during this time period, for an increase of 37.8%.

It is possible for people to register themselves as not belonging to any religious organisation at all, and by the National Registry’s count, there are some 29,221 people registered as such.