Croatia
POPULATION 4,390,751
ROMAN CATHOLIC 87.83 percent
EASTERN ORTHODOX 4.42 percent
OTHER CHRISTIAN 0.58 percent
OTHER 1.4 percent
AGNOSTIC, UNDECLARED, NOT RELIGIOUS, OR UNKNOWN 5.77 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Republic of Croatia is a small country located on the Adriatic Sea in the southeast of Europe. It lost its independence as early as the twelfth century and at times has been a part of Hungary, Austria, and Yugoslavia. In addition, parts of contemporary Croatian territory were once under the control of the Republic of Venice, the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon's France, and Italy. In 1991 Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia to become an independent country.
Along with language, religion has played a large part in the preservation of the national identity of Croatians. Roman Catholicism served to identify Croatians in the multinational Yugoslavia, in which Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam were also dominant religions. The fall of communism, the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the independence of Croatia in the early 1990s strengthened the connection between national and religious identification.
Religious Tolerance
According to its constitution, Croatia is a secular country in which all religious communities are separate from the state, equal before the law, and free in their public action. The position and role of the Catholic Church have been regulated by four agreements that Croatia signed with the Vatican in 1996 and 1998.
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