Religion in Wales
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wales is traditionally a Christian country with around 70% claiming to be Christian. Until 1920 the established church was Anglican, although Wales has a strong tradition of nonconformism and Methodism.
Most Welsh people of faith are affiliated with the Church in Wales or other Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Wales, Catholicism, Baptist and Congregational churches, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Other religions Welsh people may be affiliated with include Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Sikhism, with most non-Christian Welsh people found in Cardiff.
Contents |
[edit] Christianity
| UK Christian Denominations |
|---|
|
Other
|
[edit] History
As the Roman Legions garrisoning Wales withdrew in the early 5th century, invading tribes, including the Angles and Saxons, who later became the Anglo-Saxon English, were unable to make inroads into Wales except possibly along the Severn Valley as far as Llanidloes. However they gradually conquered eastern and southern Britain (which then became England), thus leaving Wales cut off from her Celtic relations in Scotland, Cornwall and Cumbria. Wales became Christian, and the "age of the saints" (approximately 500–700) was marked by the establishment of monastic settlements throughout the country, by religious leaders such as Saint David, Illtud and Teilo.[1]
The Welsh refused to co-operate with Augustine of Canterbury's mission to the Anglo-Saxons. However, a combination of Celtic Christianity's reconciliation with Rome and English conquest of Wales meant that from the Middle Ages until 1920, the Welsh dioceses were part of the Province of Canterbury -- in communion with the See of Rome until the Reformation, and continuing afterwards as part of the Church of England. From the time of Henry VIII, Wales had been absorbed into England as a legal entity and the Established Church in Wales was the Church of England.
The first translation of the Bible into Welsh was the New Testament translation of William Salesbury in 1567, closely followed by William Morgan's translation of the whole Bible in 1588. The translation of the Bible into Welsh was important to the survival of the Welsh language. It had the effect, along with the Welsh translation of the Book of Common Prayer, of conferring status on Welsh as a liturgical language and vehicle for worship. This in turn led to its continued use as a means of everyday communication down to the present day despite the pressure of English.
The Welsh Methodist revival of the 18th century was one of the most significant religious and social movements in the history of Wales. The revival began within the Church of England in Wales and at the beginning remained as a group within it, but the Welsh revival differed from the Methodist revival in England in that its theology was Calvinist rather than Arminian. Welsh Methodists gradually built up their own networks, structures, and even meeting houses (or chapels), which led eventually to the secession of 1811 and the formal establishment of the Calvinistic Methodist Presbyterian church of Wales in 1823.
The Welsh Methodist revival also had an influence on the older nonconformist churches, or dissenters — the Baptists and the Congregationalists — who in turn also experienced growth and renewal. As a result, by the middle of the nineteenth century, Wales was a predominantly a nonconformist country.
The 1904-1905 Welsh Revival was the largest full scale Christian Revival of Wales of the 20th century. It is believed that at least 100,000 people became Christians during the 1904–1905 revival, but despite this it did not put a stop to the gradual decline of Christianity in Wales, only holding it back slightly.
The Welsh Church Act 1914 provided for the separation of the four dioceses of the Church of England located in Wales (known collectively as the Church in Wales) from the rest of the Church, and for the simultaneous disestablishment of the Church. The Act came into operation in 1920. Since then there has been no established church in Wales. In 2008, the Anglican Church in Wales narrowly rejected a proposal to allow women to become bishops. [2]
[edit] Sabbatarianism
The sabbatarian temperance movement was historically strong among the Welsh, the sale of alcohol being prohibited on Sundays in Wales by the Sunday Closing Act of 1881 - the first legislation specifically issued for Wales since the Middle Ages. From the early 1960s, local council areas were permitted to hold referendums every seven years to determine whether they should be "wet" or "dry" on Sundays: most of the industrialised areas in the east and south went "wet" immediately, and by the 1980s the last district, Dwyfor in the northwest, went wet, since then there have been no more Sunday-closing referendums.
[edit] Saints
Saint David is the patron saint of Wales.
Wales is particularly noted for naming places after either local or well-known saints - all places beginning in Llan e.g. Llanbedr - St Peter (Pedr); Llanfihangel - St Michael (Mihangel); Llanarmon - St. Garmon. Because of the relatively small number of saints' names used, places names are often suffixed by their locality e.g. Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr, Llanfihangel y Creuddyn, Llanfihangel-y-Pennant.
[edit] Islam
The largest non-Christian faith in Wales is Islam, with about 22,000 members in 2001 served by about 40 mosques.
The first Muslim community which permanently settled in Wales consisted of Yemeni sailors who arrived in ports such as Swansea shortly after 1900. The first mosque in Britain is recorded as having been at 2 Glyn Rhondda Street, Cardiff, in 1860[3].
In Wales most Muslims live in Cardiff (11261, 3,7%), but there are also significant numbers in Newport (3492, 2.6%) and Swansea (2167, 1.0%).
[edit] Judaism
Judaism has quite a long history in Wales, with a Jewish community recorded in Swansea from around 1730. In August 1911, during a period of public order and industrial disputes, Jewish shops across the South Wales coalfield were damaged by mobs. Since that time the Jewish population of that area, which reached a peak of 4000 - 5000 in 1913, has declined with only Cardiff retaining a sizeable Jewish population, of about 2000 in the 2001 Census.
[edit] Other faiths
Hinduism and Buddhism each have about 5000 adherents in Wales, with the rural county of Ceredigion being the centre of Welsh Buddhism. Govinda's temple & restaurant, ran by the Hare Krishna's in Swansea is a focal point for many Welsh Hindus. There are about 2000 Sikhs in Wales, with the first purpose-built gurdwara opened in the Riverside area of Cardiff in 1989. In 2001 some 7000 people classified themselves as following "other religions" including a reconstructed form of Druidism, which was the pre-Christian religion of Wales (not to be confused with the Druids of the Gorsedd at the National Eisteddfod of Wales).
[edit] Irreligion
Approximately one sixth of the population, some 500,000 people, profess no religious faith whatsoever.
[edit] Statistics
Beside the Roman Catholic Church (Eglwys Gatholig Rufeinig) and the Church in Wales (Eglwys yng Nghymru), which both have less than 5 % of the population as members, the largest religious societies are the Presbyterian Church of Wales (Eglwys Bresbyteraidd Cymru) with 34,819 (2004) members and 1 % of the population as members and the Union of Welsh Independents (Undeb yr Annibynwyr Cymraeg) as well as the Baptist Union of Wales (Undeb Bedyddwyr Cymru) with about 1 % of the population as members each.
The 2001 Census showed that slightly less than 10% of the Welsh population are regular church- or chapel-goers (a slightly smaller proportion than in England or Scotland), although about 70% of the population see themselves as some form of Christian.
[edit] Religions in Wales, 2001
| Religion | Number | % |
|---|---|---|
| Christianity | 2,087,242 | 71.9 |
| No religion | 537,935 | 18.5 |
| Islam | 21,739 | 0.7 |
| Hinduism | 5,439 | 0.2 |
| Sikhism | 2,015 | 0.1 |
| Judaism | 2,256 | 0.1 |
| Buddhism | 5,407 | 0.2 |
| Any other religion | 6,909 | 0.2 |
| Religion not stated | 234,143 | 8.1 |
Source: UK 2001 Census.[4]
[edit] Notable places of worship
- St David's Cathedral - Church in Wales
- Cardiff Cathedral - Roman Catholic Church
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Lloyd, J.E. A History of Wales pp. 143–159
- ^ Church rejects women bishops bill BBC News April 2, 2008
- ^ Islam and Britain, BBC
- ^ England and Wales, England, Wales, Government Office Regions, Counties, Unitary Authorities - Rural and urban area classification 2004 (MS Excel). UK National Statistics Online (2004). Retrieved on 2007-06-06.
|
|||||||||||
