Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe. Christianity has been practiced in Europe since the first century, and a number of the Pauline Epistles were addressed to Christians living in Greece, as well as other parts of the Roman Empire.
According to a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center, 76.2% of the European population identified themselves as Christians.
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, has the name of Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians.
The New Testament is a collection of 27 Christian texts written in Koine Greek by various authors, forming the second major division of the Christian Bible. It includes four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, epistles attributed to Paul and other authors, and the Book of Revelation. The New Testament canon developed gradually over the first few centuries of Christianity through a complex process of debate, rejection of heretical texts, and recognition of writings deemed apostolic, culminating in the formalization of the 27-book canon by the late 4th century. It has been widely accepted across Christian traditions since Late Antiquity.
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead after his crucifixion, whose coming as the messiah (Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with over 2.3 billion followers, comprising around 28.8% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 120 countries and territories.
Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, and doctrinally diverse concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Most Christian denominations, however, generally hold in common the belief that Jesus is God the Son—the Logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of humankind; this message is called the gospel, meaning the "good news". The four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe Jesus' life and teachings as preserved in the early Christian tradition, with the Old Testament as the gospels' respected background.
A state religion (also called official religion) is a religion or creed officially endorsed by a sovereign state. A state with an official religion (also known as a confessional state), while not a secular state, is not necessarily a theocracy. State religions are subject to advantageous treatment by official or government-sanctioned establishments of them, ranging from incentivising citizens to recognise and practice them through government endorsement to having public spending on the maintenance of religious property and clergy be unrestricted, but the state does not need to be under the legislative control of the clergy as it would be in a theocracy. Generally, these religions have more rights and fewer restrictions in the country than other religions in a country.
Official religions have been known throughout human history in almost all types of cultures, reaching into the Ancient Near East and prehistory. The relation of religious cult and the state was discussed by the ancient Latin scholar Marcus Terentius Varro, under the term of theologia civilis (lit. 'civic theology'). The first state-sponsored Christian denomination was the Armenian Apostolic Church, established in 301 CE. In Christianity, as the term church is typically applied to a place of worship for Christians or organizations incorporating such ones, the term state church is associated with Christianity as sanctioned by the government, historically the state church of the Roman Empire in the last centuries of the Empire's existence, and is sometimes used to denote a specific modern national branch of Christianity. Closely related to state churches are ecclesiae, which are similar but carry a more minor connotation.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (Greek: Ελληνορθόδοξο Πατριαρχείο Αντιοχείας), also known as the Antiochian Orthodox Church and legally as the Rūm Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East (Arabic: بطريركيّة أنطاكية وسائر المشرق للروم الأرثوذكس, romanized: Baṭriyarkiyyat ʾAnṭākiya wa-Sāʾir al-Mašriq li-r-Rūm al-ʾUrṯūḏuks, lit. 'Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East for the Orthodox Rum'), is an autocephalous Greek Orthodox church within the wider communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity that originates from the historical Church of Antioch. Headed by the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, it considers itself the successor to the Christian community founded in Antioch by the Apostles Peter and Paul. It is one of the largest Christian denominations of the Middle East, alongside the Copts of Egypt and the Maronites of Lebanon.
Its adherents, known as Antiochian Christians, are a Middle-Eastern semi-ethnoreligious Eastern Christian group residing in the Levant region, including the Hatay Province of Turkey. Many of their descendants now live in the global Eastern Christian diaspora. The number of Antiochian Greek Christians is estimated to be approximately 4.3 million.
Jesus (c. 6 to 4 BC – AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader in the Roman province of Judaea. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians consider Jesus to be the incarnation of God the Son and awaited messiah, or Christ, a descendant from the Davidic line that is prophesied in the Old Testament. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically. Accounts of Jesus's life are contained in the Gospels, especially the four canonical Gospels in the New Testament. Since the Enlightenment, academic research has yielded various views on the historical reliability of the Gospels and how closely they reflect the historical Jesus.
According to Christian tradition, as preserved in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus was circumcised at eight days old, was baptized by John the Baptist as a young adult, and after 40 days and nights of fasting in the wilderness, began his own ministry. He was an itinerant teacher who interpreted the law of God with divine authority and was often referred to as "rabbi". Jesus often debated with his fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables, and gathered followers, among whom 12 were appointed as his apostles. He was arrested in Jerusalem and tried by the Jewish authorities, handed over to the Roman government, and crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judaea. After his death, his followers became convinced that he rose from the dead, and following his ascension, the community they formed eventually became the early Christian Church that expanded as a worldwide movement.
As of 2011, most Armenians in Armenia are Christians (97%) and are members of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is a member of the family of Oriental Orthodox Churches. It was founded in the 1st century AD, and in 301 AD became the first branch of Christianity to become a state religion.
Religion in Hungary is varied, with Christianity being the largest religion. In the national census of 2022, 42.5% of the population identified themselves as Christians, of whom 29.2% were adherents of Catholicism (27.5% following the Roman Rite, and 1.7% the Greek Rite), 9.8% of Calvinism, 1.8% of Lutheranism, 0.2% of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and 1.5% of other Christian denominations. 1.3% of the population identified themselves as adherents of other religions; minorities practising Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the Baháʼí Faith, Taoism, Hungarian Neopaganism and other Neopaganisms, and New Age, are present in the country. At the same time, 40.1% of the population did not answer, not identifying their beliefs or non-beliefs, while 16.1% identified themselves as not religious.
In 2020, 85.84% of the population in Georgia adhered to Christianity (mainly Georgian Orthodox), 11% were Muslim, 0.1% were Jewish, 0.04% were Baháʼí and 3% had no religious beliefs. Other religious groups include Jehovah's Witnesses and Yazidis. Orthodox churches serving other non-Georgian ethnic groups, such as Russians and Greeks, are subordinate to the Georgian Orthodox Church.
A Pew Research Center study about religion and education around the world in 2016, found that between the various Christian communities, Georgia ranks as the third highest nation in terms of Christians who obtain a university degree in institutions of higher education (57%).
In the Czech Republic, 47.8% of the population is irreligious (atheist, agnostic or other irreligious life stances), while 21.3% of the population are believers. The religious identity of the country has changed drastically since the first half of the 20th century, when more than 90% of Czechs were Christians. As of 2021, 11.7% of the population identified with Christianity (9.3% identifying with Catholicism and 2.4% with all other Christian denominations); 10.8% identified with other religious identities or beliefs. According to sociologist Jan Spousta, not all the irreligious people are atheists; indeed, since the late 20th century there has been an increasing distancing from both Christian dogmatism and atheism, and at the same time ideas and non-institutional models similar to those of Eastern religions have become widespread through movements started by various gurus, and hermetic and mystical paths.