Religion in Mozambique - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

style="font-size:110%;" | Religious affiliation in Mozambique
Affiliation	1997 census	2007 census
Christian Christianity Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...	49.1%	56.1%
Catholic Catholic The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...	23.8%	28.4%
Zionist Christian	17.5%	15.5%
Evangelical	7.8%In the 1997 census "Evangelical" was merged with "Protestant".	10.9%
Anglican	-The 1997 census did not have a separate category for "Anglican".	1.3%
Muslim Islam Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...	17.8%	17.9%
None Irreligion Irreligion is defined as an absence of religion or an indifference towards religion. Sometimes it may also be defined more narrowly as hostility towards religion. When characterized as hostility to religion, it includes antitheism, anticlericalism and antireligion. When characterized as...	23.1%	18.7%
Other/Unknown	10.0%	7.3%
Notes

According to the most recent census conducted by the National Institute of Statistics

National Institute of Statistics

National Institute of Statistics may refer to:*National Institute of Statistics of Bolivia*National Institute of Statistics of Cambodia*National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica*National Institute of Statistics and Census of Nicaragua...

in 2007, 56.1% of the population of Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

were Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

, 17.9% were Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

, 18.7% had no religion and 7.3% adhered to other beliefs.

Religious communities are dispersed throughout the country. The northern provinces are predominantly Muslim, particularly along the coastal strip, but some areas of the northern interior have a stronger concentration of Protestant or Catholic communities. Protestants and Catholics are generally more numerous in the southern and central regions, but Muslim minority populations are also present in these areas.

The National Directorate of Religious Affairs in the Ministry of Justice states evangelical Christians represent the fastest growing religious group in the country. Generally religious communities tend to draw their members from across ethnic, political, economic, and racial lines. The growing South Asian immigrant population is predominantly Muslim and follows the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence.

There are 732 religious denominations and 144 religious organizations registered with the Department of Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Justice. During the reporting period 10 denominations and 20 religious organizations were registered. Major Christian religious groups include Anglican, Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Congregational, Methodist, Nazarene

Nazarene

Nazarene may refer to:* Nazarene , a title applied to Jesus of Nazareth* Nazarene , a sect of 4th century Christianity described by Epiphanius* Church of the Nazarene, modern Christian Pentecostal denomination...

, Presbyterian, Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...

, Roman Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, and Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

Universal Church of the Kingdom of God is a Pentecostal Christian organisation established in Brazil on July 9, 1977, with a presence in many countries...

, as well as evangelical

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...

, apostolic, and Pentecostal churches. Many small, independent Protestant and Catholic churches that have split from mainstream denominations fuse African traditional beliefs and practices within a Christian framework.

The overwhelming majority of Muslims are Sunni and Sufi, with a tiny Shi'a minority (a few families) principally of South Asian origin. The three principal Islamic organizations are the Islamic Congress, the Islamic Council, and the [Asian] Muslim Community. The Kuwaiti-funded and Sudanese-managed nongovernmental organization (NGO) African Muslim Agency conducted humanitarian work, as did the Muslim development agency Aga Khan..

Jewish, Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

, and Bahá'í Faith

Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....

groups are registered and constitute a very small percentage of the population.

The country's leading mosques and the Catholic Church have tried to eliminate some traditional indigenous practices from their places of worship, instituting practices that reflect a stricter interpretation of sacred texts; however, some Christian and Muslim adherents continue to incorporate traditional practices and rituals, and religious authorities have generally been permissive of such practices.

Foreign missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

groups operate freely in the country. Some groups offer religious teaching centers to their local communities, while others provide scholarships for students to study in their respective countries.

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion

Freedom of religion

Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...

, and the Government generally respects this right in practice.

Anti-Religious Campaign 1979-1982

The ruling party of Mozambique since independence, known as Frelimo, became predominantly Marxist during the liberation war. After independence, it declared the state secular and it nationalised all schools and health facilities, until then owned and run in their majority by religious institutions. Faced by resistance, the new state emprisonned some clerics in 1975 and 1976 and banned all Jehovah Witnesses to a district in Zambezia in 1977.

In response to the changes in the social and religious situation after Mozambique, the Roman Catholic church vented public criticism. Catholic bishops condemned a god-less society and criticised the death penalty and re-education camps. In 1978 it decided to transform into a church of communities, something the state understood as an move towards resistance to Socialism, rather than the collaboration stated by some Bishops. The result was an outright attack on all relgiion on the part of the state. .

From early 1979, the regime attempted to discredit the church on the basis of the history of the colonial church, and it begun a campaign to close churches, prevent religious activities and restrict the movements of religious staff. Catholic and other religious institutions resisted, more or less openly. By 1980, resistance was often open and bad international criticism was rife, something which convinced Frelimo to change its stance.

Several Protestant groups in Mozambique had strong allegiance to the Frelimo government, potentially because many in the Frelimo leadership (including the late national hero Eduardo Mondlane) had been trained in Protestant schools and the World Council of Churches had supported the Mozambique institute in Dar-es-Salaam during the war of liberation. But many non-Catholic churches suffered much none the less, not least the Jehovah Witnesses who were all deported to Zambezia and the Nazarene Church which saw many of its missionaries emprisonned.

Islam suffered probably most however during the Anti-religious campaign, because of the plain misunderstanding or prejudice of the Frelimo leadership. Ministers thought for example that raising pigs was a good idea to combat under-development and they genuinally did not understand resistance on the part of Muslims in the north of the country. Some long-lasting trauma was thus created.

Renamo benefitted from Frelimo anti-religious attack. Some campaigning was done nationally and internationally by the rebel movement on the subject of religion in 1978 already, but with little long-lasting impact however - only some radical American and English Pentecostal groups openly sided with Renamo. The guerilla stance was indeed eventually ambiguous in relation to religious institutions, and the movement did not hesitate to take religious hostages or kill missionaries, national priests, pastors or nuns.

The anti-religious campaign of Frelimo formally ended in 1982 when the party in power held a big meeting with all the main religious institutions. On that occasion, it claimed mistakes had been made and national unity needed to prevail. State control of religious institutions continued after 1982, but the state attack on faith had come to an end .

Anti-Religious Campaign 1979-1982

See also