Religious demographics of the former Czechslovakia

[ag]

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Most liberal branch of Lutheranism. That's all I need to know.

And the Syro-Malabar Rite Catholic only needs to know that he is Syro-Malabar and Catholic (I doubt even half a percent of the faithful there would be able to tell the difference between the Monophysites and the Nestorians). But Church politics is at least as much fun as American Politics - there is just a longer history to explore.  Hey, isn't it as fascinating as the South's shift from the Democratic to the Republican faith?

I hope I don't offend your faith - I just enjoy the subject for its own sake, as art. Don't take it seriously (I will take care of avoiding talking about Lutheranism, at least in this post).

[Brambila]

Thanks AG for the uselessly detailed answer.

(By the way, I'm kidding)

[Platypus]

wow, long time no see, Bram. Hope to see you in about 6 months! Bye!

[minionofmidas]

Correction on the strong association of Ruthenian ethnicity and Greek Catholic rite in Slovakia.

According to the 2001 census, of 5379K people in Slovakia, 85.8% claim to be of Slovak "nationality", 9.7% Ungarian, 1.7% Romany (definitely a severe undercount), 0.8% Czech, 0.4% (24K) Ruthenian, 0.2% (11K) Ukrainian, 0.1% (5K) German, etc. (Slovakia also recognizes Polish, Moravian, Russian, Bulgarian, Croat, Serbian, and Jewish ethnic minorities.) 1.0% of the population did not know their nationality, refused to answer, or overlooked the question on their census questionnaire. 0.1% were of other nationalities, mostly concentrated in Bratislava (and probably mostly made up of noncitizens.)

However, by religion, as listed above, 68.9% are Roman Catholic, 6.9% are Lutheran, 4.1% are Greek Catholic, 2.0% are Reformed, 0.9% are Orthodox, and a remarkable 0.4% are Jehova's Witnesses. The census lists another 8 Protestant sects at between 0.03% and 0.12% percent each, and a religiously Jewish population of 2310 (0.04% of the population, but 10 times as many as claim to be of Jewish nationality.) 0.1% were of "other religion", 13.0% were explicitly of no religion, 3.0% refused or overlooked the question or just didn't know what they were.

So there's a large ethnic Slovak Greek Catholic population.  - Of course, what actually happens is that people probably just stopped speaking Ukrainian but retained their religion, and identified as "Slovak" in the Census. Ethnicity is still somewhat in flux in Slovakia.

Here's some regional results-
Presovsky Kraj is 90.6% Slovak, 2.7% Ruthene, 0.9% Ukrainian - that's more than half of the Ukrainian and almost 90% of the Ruthene total living in this region.
By religion, it's 67.0% Roman Catholic, 15.3% Greek Catholic, and 4.0% Orthodox.

Neighboring Kocicky Kraj is 81.9% Slovak, and 0.3% each Ruthene and Ukrainian (there is a sizeable Ungarian presence.)
By religion, it's 59.5% Roman Catholic, 11.0% Greek Catholic, and 1.8% Orthodox.

At the district level below that, the relation is similar -
the eastern rite strongholds in the Presovsky Kraj of Medzilaborce (55.5% Greek Catholic, 29.0% Orthodox, 8.2% Roman Catholic), Svidnik (36.5% Greek Catholic, 31.9% Roman Catholic, 19.8% Orthodox), and Snina (48.6% Roman Catholic, 22.2% Greek Catholic, 21.1% Orthodox) also have the highest numbers of Ruthenes and Ukrainians, but these numbers are far smaller:
Medzilaborce 50.4% Slovak, 40.4% Ruthene, 5.0% Ukrainian
Svidnik 83.3% Slovak, 10.5% Ruthene, 2.5% Ukrainian
Snina 84.7% Slovak, 8.8% Ruthene, 2.8% Ukrainian