Evangelicalism is on the rise in Spain, with the number of evangelical places of worship having increased by 96 over the last year, according to newly released statistics.
New data on worship places released by the Observatory of Religious Pluralism in Spain, reveals that evangelical Christianity has more places of worship than any other minority faith group, with 4,455, up from 4,359 in 2023.
Roman Catholicism remains the comfortable frontrunner with almost 23,000 worship places, but there are more than twice as many evangelical churches as there are mosques.
The statistics also revealed that about one in four of the nearly 31,000 worship places in Spain are not Roman Catholic. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Orthodox completed the top five, registering 633 and 236 places of worship respectively.
Church decline in Germany: a growing trend
This positive news for evangelicals in Spain comes after disappointing recent news from Germany, where an investigation by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed that the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) recently sold or demolished 444 buildings, primarily due to a fall in its membership, meaning it can no longer afford to maintain all its properties.
In Germany it is expected that 10,000 worship places will be ‘deconsecrated’ by 2033 across the Roman Catholic church and EKD, which would mean there would be a fifth fewer churches across the country.
This news is perhaps inevitable following reports last year that membership in both has fallen in recent times. During 2022, membership declined by 523,000 in the Catholic church (2.4%), while the EKD reported a 575,000 decline, or 2.9%.
