Poland
POPULATION 38,634,000
ROMAN CATHOLIC 93 percent
OTHER CATHOLIC 0.5 percent
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN 1.3 percent
NONRELIGIOUS 4 percent
OTHER 1.2 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Republic of Poland is located in Central Europe to the east of Germany; it is bordered on the north by the Baltic Sea and Russia and on the south by the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Most of the people in the country are Polish; minorities include Ukrainians, Germans, and Belarusians.
Religion has been highly significant in Polish history. The Catholic Church is the largest religious organization in Poland and has been closely connected to both the statehood and culture of the country for more than a thousand years. The Christianization of Poland began in 966, when the Polish dukes received baptism from the Bohemian monarchy. This enabled the dukes to make connections with Christian rulers and protected the country against German hegemony. The date is widely recognized as the beginning of the Polish state.
There are four rites in the Catholic Church in Poland: Roman Catholic (by far the largest with nearly 36 million members), Byzantine-Ukrainian, Byzantine-Slavic, and Armenian. The last three are in formal union with Roman Catholic Church. There are also three Old Catholic churches (separated from the church in Rome).
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