Census 2021: Close to 72% of Bulgarians say they are Christians
A total of 71.5 per cent of Bulgarians who answered an optional question in the 2021 Census about their religion said that they were Christians, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said on November 24.
However, of those who said that they were Christians, 59.1 per cent said that they were religious and 22.3 per cent said they were not.
The remainder either were unable to say or declined to answer the question: “Are you religious?”.
Of Bulgaria’s total population of 6 519 789 as of the September 7 2021 Census, a total of 4 219 270 said that they were Christians.
Of those who said that they were Christians, 4 091 780 (97 per cent) said that they were Eastern Orthodox, 69 852 (1.7 per cent) belonged to a Protestant denomination, 38 709 (0.9 per cent) were Roman Catholics and 5001 (0.1 percent) Armenian Apostolics.
A total of 13 927 (0.3 per cent) said that they belonged to “another” Christian denomination.
A total of 638 708 (10.8 per cent) of those who answered the question in Census 2021 about religion said that they were Muslims.
Of those who said that they were Muslims, 77.6 per cent described themselves as religious, while 11.7 per cent said that they were not, with, again, the remainder unable or unwilling to answer the question.
A total of 1736 people (0.02 per cent) gave their religion as Judaism.
Of those who said that they were Jews, 38.9 per cent described themselves as religious while 41.3 per cent said that they were not.
The NSI said that 6451 people (0.1 per cent) said that they adhered to another religion, 305 102 (5.2 per cent) said that they had none, 259 235 (4.4 per cent) could not say and 472 606 (eight per cent) would not say.
The news conference was told that the category “atheist” had not been included as an option.
By gender, of those who described themselves as religious, 56 per cent were women and 44 per cent were men.
By self-identified ethnic group, 79 per cent of Bulgarians said that they were Eastern Orthodox, 0.7 per cent Protestant, 0.7 per cent Roman Catholic and 2.2 per cent Muslim.
Among those who identified as Turks, 89.1 per cent said that they were Muslims, 0.9 per cent said that they were Eastern Orthodox Christians and 2.6 per cent said that they had no religion.
Among those who identified as Roma, 29.1 per cent said that they were Eastern Orthodox Christians, 17.6 per cent said that they were Muslims, 12.4 per cent Protestants, 14.3 per cent said that they had no religion and 15.9 per cent said that they could not say what their religion was.
(Photo, of a chapel in the village of Bliznatsi: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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