Number of Christians drops to 53 percent in 2011

Budapest, June 11 (MTI) - Hungary has become more secularised over the past ten years with the number of faithful at the top three Christian churches shrinking from 73 percent to 53 percent of the population, combined.

According to data published on the website of Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Hungary, citing results of the latest 2011 census, the proportion of Christians fell most in Budapest, where only 40 percent of the population belongs to one of the three big churches [Catholic, Reformed and Lutheran].

The churches lost the most of their members in Budapest s fifth district: their numbers fell from 65 percent of local residents in 2001 to 36 percent in 2011, according to the study published on evangelikus.hu.

The number of non-affiliated people or those declining to answer a question on religion in the census has increased, the latter group to about 2.7 million combined [of Hungary s total population of just under 10 million]. However, it is difficult to say how many of these people are actually non-religious, Gabor Harrach, the study s author, said.

Harrach added that he had not found that people in richer parts of the country were more religious, while there appeared to be more right-wing voters among Christians who claimed their faith in the census. He said however that based on voter data by geographical regions, members of the far right were not necessarily more religious and that left-wing voters and liberals were more likely to decline to answer the question on religion.