National Church Membership Continues To Decline

A new report from the National Registry shows that while the National Church is still the largest registered religious organisation in the country, its membership continues to decline; by roughly 6% since 2019.

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According to the more detailed report (.xlsx file), church membership declined by 1,202 members from December 1 2021 to September 1 2022, standing now at 228,064 members. This marks a decrease of 0.5% for this time period. Meanwhile, the greatest percentage decline was for a religious organisation called Vitund, which lost all three of its members, marking a 100% decline.

The greatest increase of membership in terms of number of members was found at Humanists Iceland, which increased by 403 members during this same time period, and are now at 5,024 members in all. The greatest percentage increase was at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Iceland, which increased by 90 to 341, marking an increase of 35.9%.

Not everyone in Iceland chooses to be registered in a religious organisation, and the number of people who are outside of any registered faith has been increasing, from 6.9% in December 2019 to 7.8% in September. At the same time, there are those of “unspecified faith”, who have also been increasing, from 13% to 17% over this same period of time.