Dominant Catholicism in Slovak history
As a means of emancipation, Prince Rastislav I invited the Greek Christian missionaries Cyril and Methodius to Christianize his kingdom of Greater Moravia, which in the 9th century included Slovakia. Cyril created the first Slavic alphabet, Glagolitic, and translated liturgical texts into Old Slavic, which became the third religious language in Europe.
After the destruction of Greater Moravia by the Magyars, Slovakia became part of the Kingdom of Hungary until the First World War. Catholic rites became established through the early conversion of Hungarian kings. The schism between the Church of the East and the Church of the West in 1054 definitively separated Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and Orthodoxy was never able to penetrate the Kingdom of Hungary, whose kings were always crowned according to Catholic rites.
Catholicism, well established in the new Austro-Hungarian state, first came under threat in the 16th century. The Reformation from Germany was introduced under the influence of the Hungarian princes of Transylvania. This movement was not only religious, but also social and political, directed against power and the Catholic Church. Protestantism won over the townspeople, as it enabled them to challenge the domination of the Church and the nobility. The nobility eventually rallied to the Reformation, as it gave a spiritual dimension to their many revolts against the despotic rule of the Habsburgs. Peasants expected it to improve their lot. The evangelical version of the Reformation spread throughout Slovakia in the course of the 16th century.
In the second half of the 16th century, the Catholic Church and Vienna began to fight Protestantism with fervor. The counter-Reformation was led by the Jesuits. The process of recatholicization, which systematically favored Catholics, was not completed until the end of the 18th century. It was against this backdrop that Emperor Leopold I promulgated a law concerning the construction of "articular" churches. Evangelical Protestants were allowed to build two wooden churches in each of Slovakia's eight districts. However, these churches in the shape of a Greek cross had to be built in wood, on the edge of villages, without a steeple, without a single nail, with a main entrance on the side and, above all, in less than a year. Today, these buildings are jewels of Slovak folk architecture.
The influence of the communist period
During the Communist interlude (1948-1989), religious practices, described as the "opium of the people", were simply banned and the Church's property expropriated. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992, the Slovak Republic quickly set about restituting Church property. This process lasted around twenty years and resulted in a rather unprecedented situation. The state, which is officially neutral from a denominational point of view, in reality covers the personnel and management costs of all official places of worship. In practice, therefore, the Church is not totally separate from the State, and discussions on this subject are being blocked by the Catholic Church, which believes it has not recovered all its assets, particularly the farmland around religious buildings. Nothing is moving on this issue, and this lack of political will to change things is justified by the affirmation of the Christian character of Slovak society, which since the fall of the Communist regime has once again played an important role in people's lives.
The place of other religions
Slovakia is a resolutely Roman Catholic country, at 62%. In terms of other faiths, there are only a few Protestants left in Slovakia today, either Augsburg Evangelicals or Calvinist Reformers, who account for around 6-10% of the population. They are mainly concentrated in central Slovakia.
The Uniate Church concerns the Ruthenians, an ethnic minority in the east of the country whose language is close to Ukrainian. Unlike their Ukrainian Orthodox neighbors, they are Catholic and recognize the authority of the Pope. Nevertheless, their rites retain some specific Orthodox features: baptism by immersion, marriage for priests (on condition of being married before ordination) and iconostasis in churches. They are also known as Greek Catholics. Maronite Christians and Coptic Catholics are also Uniates.
The Jewish community, 60,000 of whom were deported to Nazi concentration camps, now numbers just a few thousand. Their ancient synagogues can be admired in some towns.
Islam does not have the status of an official religion
Between 2,000 and 5,000 Muslims live in the country. This means that the community does not have the numbers needed to be officially recognized and benefit from state subsidies for places of worship, schools and education. This poses major difficulties for this religion, which is not allowed to have official imams and whose funerals and marriages are considered illegitimate. The situation took a political turn with the 2015 wave of migrants. In August, Prime Minister Robert Fico announced that his country would only offer asylum to Christian refugees, citing "security reasons", while the Interior Minister pointed to the "lack of mosques" to justify the policy of not welcoming Muslims. Openly anti-Muslim, the Slovak Nationalist Party (SNS) and its leader Andrej Danko, president of the Slovak Parliament between 2016 and 2020, declared: "Islamization starts with kebabs, and in Bratislava it has already begun. So, understand what it could look like between five and ten years." The tone was set, and in late 2016, he proposed a law that would make it difficult for the Muslim community to obtain official status. Passed by Parliament, his text required a religion to have 50,000 followers to be recognized. President Andrej Kiska immediately assumed his responsibilities and vetoed this "discriminatory" law. The situation is tense for this minority, which represents just 0.1% of the population.
Slovakia is a country with little secularization
Slovak religiosity remains fairly strong. Over three-quarters declare themselves to be believers, and of those who do, 55% are churchgoers. Churches are often full and frequented by young people.
The feeling of belonging to the Catholic Church is particularly high. There is little room for other religions, especially as the Catholic Church can sometimes be instrumentalized by certain nationalists in a young nation in the process of building its identity.
