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6. Official (State-sponsored) Religion
There are two competing Orthodox Churches in Moldova. The bigger one is the Metropolitan Church of Chişinău and Whole Moldova (better known as the Orthodox Church of Moldova), which belongs to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The second Orthodox metropolitan church in the Republic of Moldova is the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, an autonomous local Orthodox church under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Patriarchate. The Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia is the spiritual, canonical and historical successor of the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia which had existed until 1944 and was reactivated on 14 September 1992.
According to the census from 2004, the population of Moldova has the following religious composition:
|
Religion |
Adherents |
% of total |
|
Eastern Orthodox Christians: - adherents of the Metropolitan Church of Moldova (subordinated to the Patriarchate of Moscow) 60 % - adherent of the Metropolitan Church of Basarabia (subordinated to the Romanian Patriarchate) 23 % |
3,158,015 |
95.5% |
|
New Protestant faiths - Baptists - Seventh-day Adventists - Pentecostal - Brethren Assemblies
|
|
1.83% |
|
Traditional Protestants - Confessional Evangelicals - Reformed - Evangelical Synod-Presbyterians |
|
0.19% |
|
Old-Rite Christians |
5,094 |
0.15% |
|
Roman Catholics |
4,645 |
0.14% |
|
Muslims |
1,667 |
0.05% |
|
Other religions |
25,527 |
0.77% |
|
|
||
|
Agnostics |
33,207 |
1% |
|
Atheists |
12,724 |
0.38% |