Religion
Religion of Bács-Kiskun County
By the 2011 census, nearly 396 thousand people had confirmed their religion in our county, representing 76% of the county's population. In 2011, the three largest churches were the Catholic, Calvinist and Lutheran, identified in all together by61% of the county's population.
Half of the population, almost 260,000 persons belong to the Catholic Church, which is nearly 30% less than in 2001. In a national comparison, their proportion of the population exceeded the national average with 13%.
The second most significant affiliation was the Calvinist, which represented 8.8% of the population - 45.9 thousand people – 24% less than in 2001. Next in line are the Lutherans, their number - almost 13.3 thousand in 2011 - declined by 22% compared to the data from 10 years earlier.
Considering the ranking of the counties, the fifth largest population of Lutherans and the seventh largest Calvinist community live in Bács-Kiskun County.
Until 1949, all censuses included the question about religious affiliation prescribing obligatory replies. After more than 50 years, in 2001 it was again possible to confirm the belonging to a church. The number of (Roman and Greek) Catholics increased by about 10% between 1930 and 1949. By 2001, in most religious communities - with the exception of Greek Catholics and some other churches- there was a recession that continued over the next decade. Compared to the about 473,000 people in 1949, the census of 2011 reported 45% less Catholics. There was a significant increase in the proportion of non-religious people within the population.
