The history of religion in Europe is complicated, diverse, and often violent. Since the Roman era, religions have fought for dominance, tolerance, and freedom of expression. What were the significant events in European religious history in the medieval, early modern, and modern eras? What is the religious makeup of Europe today?
Religion in Europe Timeline
First, we need to set apart the concept of religious thought and behavior from organized religion. While religious behavior can be traced back to the paleolithic; the origins of organized religion date back to the Neolithic era, about 11,000 BP (Before the Present). This article focuses on the latter and covers its manifestations on the European continent.
The earliest historical European records came mostly from the Mediterranean civilizations. Thus, Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome were the cultures and religions more studied by historians. But along them, the Celtic and German religions spread through Europe from the north. Paganism and Judaism beliefs merged into primitive Christianity during the Roman Empire until Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe around the fourth century AD.
Fig. 1 - Timeline of European Religion during the Ancient and Roman eras
History of Christianity in Europe
The religion of the Greeks and the Roman Empire was labeled "paganism" by the later predominant Christian faith. The dominance of Christianity meant all other religions were considered heretic–even unofficial forms of Christianity.
Fig. 2: The Baptism of Constantine, imagined by Raphael's students, 1517.
Paganism:
A polytheistic religion, meaning that practitioners worshipped a multitude of gods and goddesses, where people practiced their faith at temples dedicated to particular gods or in their households at private shrines. From paganus, "villager."
The Edict of Milan in 313 ended the persecution of Christians. By this decree, Emperor Constantine declared that the Christian religion should be protected and tolerated within the Empire. While he likely did not convert to Christianity, he appreciated the faith. His actions paved the way for Emperor Theodosius to declare Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion in 391.
Religion in Medieval Europe: Christianity Hegemony
By the tenth century, the Pope in Rome was the central figure of all Christians–which is to say all of Europe. He wielded considerable political and ecclesiastical power over the Christian kings and feudal lords.
Gregorian reform in the eleventh century solidified the Church's administration and hierarchy and sought to weed out corruption within the clergy.
Ecclesiastical:
Of or relating to the church, God, or clergy.
The Medieval Church
The Medieval Church was very concerned about rival religions, which they considered heretical. Historian R.I. Moore argues that as the Church gained power, it focused on rooting out those who did not conform to their version of Christianity.1 This need to drive out other faiths led to the Crusades and the Inquisition.
The Crusades
The Crusades began as a plea for military aid from the Byzantine Emperor to Pope Urban II in 1095. The Pope saw an opportunity to rally against a common enemy: Muslims. Thus, a series of holy wars began.
Fig. 3: The Council of Clermont, where Pope Urban II first preached the Crusades, illustrated by Jean Colombe in the manuscript Passages d'outremer, c.1474.
The fervor generated by the Crusades had disastrous consequences for non-Christians in Europe.
- On the way to the East, Crusaders slaughtered Jewish communities. These organized massacres, called pogroms, took place across Europe.
- La Reconquista, or "Iberian Crusades," (1085-1492) was an extended crusade to liberate the Peninsula from Muslim rule.
The Albigensian Crusade
Catharism began to develop and gain a significant following in Southern France. The Cathars in Southern France branched off from conventional Christianity. Pope Innocent III declared Catharism a dangerous heresy and called a Crusade against them, which lasted from 1209-1229.
Brutal warfare and an equally brutal Inquisition brought Catharism to its knees. There was no trace left by the fourteenth century. The Albigensian Crusade was not the only time that Crusades were called against "heretic" Christians. Other examples include:
- the Drenther Crusade in the Netherlands from 1228-1232.
- the Bohemian Crusade of 1340.
- the Hussite Wars in the early fifteenth century.
The Inquisition
By the thirteenth century, the Church was obsessed with imposing control over what Europeans believed. In the early thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III created a mechanism for rooting out heresy: the Inquisition, a court of inquiry designed to identify and exterminate heretics. Inquisitors would rely on accusation and questioning to identify potential heretics and torture to extract confessions from the accused.
Fig. 4: Galileo before the Inquisition by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, 1847.
The most infamous Inquisition was the Spanish Inquisition of the late fifteenth century. The monarchs, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, established the Spanish Inquisition to root out hidden non-Christians.
Thousands of people were executed during the Inquisition's three-century existence.
Religion in Europe in the 1500s
The sixteenth century fundamentally altered the face of religion in Europe. The Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the Wars of Religion bifurcated Christianity.
- The Catholic Church, despite its reforms, lost the hegemony of Europe it enjoyed during the Middle Ages.
- Protestantism firmly entrenched itself in many regions in the northern region.
The Protestant Reformation
The Catholic Church, in the eyes of many Europeans of the late Middle Ages, was a corrupt institution.
The church sold indulgences to parishioners to absolve sin and enter Heaven more quickly instead of lingering in Purgatory.
The Protestant Reformation began in Wittenberg, in 1517. Martin Luther, a German priest who protested against the Church many times before, proposed reforms in a text comprised of ninety-five theses. His bite-size theses, no more than a sentence long each, rapidly spread in the region and soon beyond.
Fig. 5: Martin Luther refusing to recant his theological ideas at the Diet of Worms by Anton von Werner, 1877.
Luther opted for a personal relationship between a person and God and the importance of reading the Bible for oneself. These two revolutionary ideas weakened the central place of Catholic clergy in the practice of faith and, by extension, daily life. As a result, the Church denounced Luther and named him a heretic, but his ideas had given him powerful friends. Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, protected Luther and sheltered him not only because he agreed with him theologically but also because helping him was a way to protest against the political regime of the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Did You Know?
Luther and other reformers' Protestant theologies significantly impacted the European populace. The invention of the printing press spread Protestant propaganda near and far. People began questioning the established hierarchy in both Church and state, leading to revolts and uprisings.
The Counter-Reformation
The Catholic Church was faced with the destruction of its carefully cultivated religious monopoly. In 1545, Pope Paul III called the Council of Trent to reform the Catholic Church and find a way to heal the divide between the Catholics and Protestants brought on by the Protestant Reformation. The Council initiated reforms in Catholic Church practices known as the Counter-Reformation. However, reconciling with the Protestants proved an impossible task for the Church. By the time the Council issued significant reforms such as establishing an educational system for clerics, it was 1562, and the Protestant Reformation had been gaining ground in Europe for decades.
The Wars of Religion
The Protestant Reformation caused a series of European wars of religion to break out, particularly in areas with Catholic kings, such as the Holy Roman Empire and France. The Wars of Religion were caused by a breakdown of understanding of whether the state, the people, or the papacy had religious authority. Catholic kings fought for the power to enforce their religion universally in their territories. Protestants fought for the freedom to choose their faith for themselves and not be persecuted for it. These Wars raged in the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 to the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Additionally, the French Wars of Religion lasted from 1534 to 1598.
Religion in Modern Europe
Religion continued to change during the Modern Era with the rise of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, this era saw degrees of separation between church and state in Europe, weakening the centuries-long connection between religion and politics.
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment that emerged in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries brought new techniques to explain the seemingly unexplainable. Enlightenment thinkers began using rationalism and critical thinking to explain the natural world. This new practice caused some to question their faith and religion's place at the center of politics, again changing the European religious climate. One cornerstone of Enlightenment thought was religious tolerance.
Skepticism
A rising skepticism emerged during the Enlightenment that promoted religious faith but not the established Church. These people believed that there was a God, but after he created the universe decided to only observe and not play an active role in the lives of his creations.
Some historians argue that the splintering of religious life brought on by the Reformation coupled with advances in technology and science led some to embrace a more secular lifestyle away from organized religion. Others, however, argue that the primary evidence used to make this claim, namely decreased church attendance, could also indicate increased personalization and privatization of religion rather than a lack of faith.
Major Religions in Europe Today
Today, the dominant religion in Europe is still Christianity. According to a survey conducted in 2019, more than 70% of the European Union's population considered themselves Christians. Included in the seventy percent are 41% who selected Roman Catholic as their religion, followed by Eastern Orthodox at 10%, Protestant at 9%, and other Christians at 4%. Islam made up 2 percent of religious Europeans. Interestingly, 17% considered themselves non-believers or Agnostics, and 10% labeled themselves Atheists. Judaism, it seems, was lumped into the 4% "other religions" category.
Most prominent religion by country, based on a 2019 Eurobarometer survey. Dark blue: More than 75% Catholic. Medium Blue: 50-75% Catholic. Light Blue: Catholic Majority. Purple: 50-75% Protestant. Red: More than 75% Orthodox. Orange: 50-75% non-religious. Yellow: Non-religious majority. Brown: 30% Catholic, 30% non-religious.
Because of secularization during the Modern era, many Europeans do not believe religion holds that much importance in their daily lives. A Gallup poll in 2008 asked Europeans this question and grouped the data by home country. It showed that, at the lowest, only 16 percent of Estonians found religion important, contrasted with 90 percent of Georgians and residents of Kosovo.
While religion is not as central to state politics in Europe as before, it is still an essential aspect of European culture and daily life for many people. Religious architecture dating from the Medieval era has been carefully preserved for religious and non-religious to experience. Additionally, migration has expanded ethnic and religious diversity in many parts of the continent, likely to increase over the following decades.
Religion in Europe - Key takeaways
- Christianity spread through Europe during the Medieval period. By the Late Middle Ages, the primary religion in Europe was Christianity, while some regions cohabited with the Jewish and Muslim populations.
- Christianity became the hegemonic religion in what was the western Roman Empire in 313 with the Edict of Milan.
- Religious tolerance was uncommon during the Medieval era.
- In the 15th century, Christianity bifurcated into two branches:
- Today, Christianity is still Europe's dominant religion.
References
- R.I. Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society, 2008.
- Fig 6 Most prominent religion by country . . . (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Largest_(non-)religious_group_by_EU_member_state_-_Eurobarometer_2019.svg) by Nederlandse Leeuw (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nederlandse_Leeuw) licensed by CC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en).
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