Germany

The country has an area of 137,847 square miles and a population of 82.3 million. There are no official statistics on religious groups; however, unofficial estimates and figures provided by religious organizations give an approximate breakdown of the membership of the country's denominations. The data below are compiled from a variety of sources.

The Roman Catholic Church has a membership of 25.5 million. The Evangelical Church, a confederation of the Lutheran, Uniate, and Reformed Protestant Churches, has 24.8 million members. Together, these two Churches account for nearly two-thirds of the population.

Protestant Christian denominations include: the New Apostolic Church, 366,979; Ethnic German Baptists from the Former Soviet Union (FSU), 75,000-100,000; and Baptist, 84,096. Muslims number approximately 4.3 million, including 2.6 million Sunnis, 400,000 Alevis, and 225,500 Shi'a. There are no official figures on the number of religious conversions. The "Zentralinstitut Islamarchiv Deutschland" (the Central Institute of the Islamic Archives in Germany) estimates that until 2004 the annual number of conversions to Islam was 300, largely female Christian native citizens marrying Muslim men; however, since 2004 the annual number of conversions has increased into the thousands. There are approximately 2,600 Islamic places of worship, including an estimated 150 traditional architecture mosques, with 100 more planned. Approximately 45 percent of Muslim immigrants have adopted the country's citizenship. Orthodox Christians number 1.4 million, including 450,000 Greek Orthodox/Constantinople Patriarchate; 250,000 Serbian Orthodox; 300,000 Romanian Orthodox; and 150,000 Russian Orthodox/Moscow Patriarchate. Buddhists number 245,000 and Hindus 97,500. Jehovah's Witnesses recorded 166,000 active missionary members and approximately 40,000 nonactive members. The Church of Scientology operates 18 churches and missions, and according to press reports, has 30,000 members. However, according to the Offices for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC) in Brandenburg and Hamburg, the Church of Scientology has 5,000-7,000 members.

According to estimates, Jews number more than 200,000, of which 106,435 are registered members of the Jewish community. Of these registered community members, 101,829 are immigrants and 4,606 are originally from the country. From 1990 to 2008, approximately 102,000 Jews and non-Jewish dependents from the countries of the FSU arrived, joining 25,000 to 30,000 Jews already in the country. As a result of a more restrictive immigration policy regarding Jews from the FSU, the number of Jewish immigrants decreased to 862 in 2008 from 1,296 in 2007 and 1,971 in 2006. The new policy was designed in cooperation with Jewish organizations in order to better manage the integration of individuals into the Jewish community.

An estimated 21 million persons (one-quarter of the population) either have no religious affiliation or are members of unrecorded religious organizations.