Roadside prayer shrine, Epirus
Courtesy Sam and Sarah Stulberg

Ninth-century Byzantine cathedral of Saint Eleutherios, Athens
CourtesyBernice Huffman Collection, Library of Congress, Washington

One of the Meteora monastery group, Thessaly, atop a rock pinnacle
Courtesy Sam and Sarah Stulberg

An estimated 97 percent of the country's population identifies itself as belonging to the Greek branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ, commonly known as the Orthodox Church of Greece. The Greek church became autocephalous (independent of the patriarchate in Constantinople) in 1833, shortly after Greek independence, but a close relationship remains among most branches of Orthodoxy (see Out of the Ottoman Empire , ch. 1). In many respects, church and state are not separate in the Western sense in Greece. In spite of reforms in the 1980s and a loss of some influence since World War II, the Orthodox Church remains the officially established religious institution of the country, and from that position it exerts considerable influence in secular matters (see Church and State , ch. 4). The largest non-Orthodox religious groups in Greece are Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim.

Data as of December 1994

NOTE: The information regarding Greece on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Greece RELIGION information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Greece RELIGION should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.