Other religions
The Russian Orthodox church in Geneva. Geneva has a long-standing Russian Orthodox community, and the oldest Orthodox church in Switzerland, consecrated in 1866.© julia slater / swissworld.org
Switzerland's third biggest religious group is Islam. The 2000 census showed that there are over 300,000 Muslims in the country, slightly more than twice as many as in 1990. Many of these Muslims are refugees or asylum seekers, but the number of Swiss nationals who are Muslims has increased from 7,700 to 36,500 in ten years.
The number of Orthodox Christians has also increased as a result of immigration from central and eastern European countries. They total more than 130,000.
The number of followers of Judaism has remained stable, with around 17,900.
There are some 21,000 Buddhists following different schools. Just over half the Buddhists are Swiss nationals. The biggest Buddhist temple in Switzerland, Wat Srinagarindravararam, opened in canton Solothurn in 2003. It follows the Theravada school.
There has been a steep rise in the number of people saying they belong to no religion. They now account for just over 11% of the population, against 7.4% in 1990, and 1.1% in 1970.
"For our country and for Europe, I don't just plead for mere tolerance, but for the implementation of Christian unity and at the same time for a wide-ranging alliance between believers of different denominations and religions with the sceptics and doubters. To what end? My answer is quite simple: to bring greater humanity into our society, which is all too often inhumane."
Hans Küng (1928 - ), radical Swiss Roman Catholic theologian, who has challenged the absolute authority of the Pope
Links to other websites
- Overview of Islam in Switzerland GRIS
- Jewish communities in Switzerland The Swiss Federation of Jewish communities
- Buddhist centres in Switzerland World Buddhist directory
- Baha'is in Switzerland