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Belgium
Also Known As Belgian
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Belgium built one of the most explicit systems of state funded religious pluralism in Europe. The constitution of 1831 was a liberal Catholic compromise that guaranteed freedom of worship and committed the state to paying clergy salaries, and that obligation now extends to six recognised faiths, Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Judaism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity, alongside organised secular humanism, which receives equivalent funding as a non confessional philosophical community. The school wars of the nineteenth century and again in the 1950s were fought over Catholic versus state education and were settled by funding both. Catholic practice has fallen very steeply, accelerated by the clerical abuse revelations of 2010, while a Muslim population of Moroccan and Turkish origin concentrated in Brussels and the industrial cities has become the second largest religious group.
Facts
Law and State
Establishment StatusNo established church; the state instead funds the clergy of six recognised faiths and grants equivalent funding to organised secular humanism as a non confessional philosophical community. State Funding MechanismThe state directly funds the clergy of six recognised faiths, Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Judaism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity, and extends equivalent funding to organised secular humanism as a non confessional philosophical community. 3 Apostasy or Blasphemy LawBelgium's Criminal Code punishes insult to the objects of a religion, by act, word, gesture or threat, in a place of worship or during a public religious ceremony, under Article 144, with imprisonment of fifteen days to six months and a fine of fifty to five hundred euros; Article 145 punishes the same insult directed at a minister of religion in the exercise of that ministry more severely, with imprisonment of two months to two years. 3 Registration or Recognition RegimeRecognition proceeds house of worship by house of worship rather than for a whole religion at once: an individual congregation of one of the country's six recognized religions, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Anglican, Islamic and Orthodox, or of organized secular humanism, applies through its region and wins final approval from the federal Ministry of Justice on conditions including transparent accounting, certification of its minister by the faith's own recognized interlocutor body, and a renunciation of foreign funding for ministers working in the building; recognition brings salaries and subsidies from the linguistic community and municipality. A congregation that will not or cannot meet these terms may instead organize as an ordinary nonprofit association, which lowers its taxes without bringing any subsidy. 3 Ban or Official WatchlistSourced to the subject's own accountA Belgian parliamentary commission examining sectarian organizations published its report in 1997 with an attached list of 189 groups named during testimony, including the Church of Scientology, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses. Parliament adopted the commission's recommendations but explicitly did not adopt the attached list, so it carries no legal or official designation as harmful or dangerous. The government funded Center for Information and Advice on Harmful Sectarian Organizations, created the following year, documents and advises on such groups but is barred by its own governing rules from categorizing any one of them as harmful. 4 Disputed
Legal StatusThe state funds the clergy of six recognised faiths, Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Judaism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity, and grants equivalent funding to organised secular humanism as a non confessional philosophical community; ritual slaughter without stunning was banned in Flanders and Wallonia and upheld in 2020. 3 Belgium funds the clergy of six state-recognised religious communities, Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Judaism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity, and extends equivalent public funding to organised secular humanism as a recognised non-confessional philosophical community. Separately, Flanders and Wallonia, Belgium's two main regions, banned ritual slaughter without prior stunning, a method required by both Jewish shechita and Islamic dhabiha practice, and the Belgian Constitutional Court upheld the bans in 2020 after Jewish and Muslim community organisations challenged them as violating religious freedom. The State Department's report documents both measures without resolving the tension: a state that funds religious and non-religious worldviews on an equal footing has, through regional legislation, restricted a ritual practice central to two of its recognised traditions. The bans were litigated up to the Belgian Constitutional Court and to the Court of Justice of the European Union, both of which upheld them in 2020; the communities affected continue to hold that this does not settle the underlying conflict between animal welfare regulation and religious practice. Demographics
Religious CompositionCatholics remain the largest identified group at roughly half the population but with very low practice, the unaffiliated are near 30 per cent and rising, and Muslims are about 7 per cent, concentrated in Brussels (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1 Government
Government Typefederal parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy 2 Sovereignty StatusSovereign UN member state 2 Established Year4 October 1830 (a provisional government declared independence from the Netherlands); 21 July 1831 (King LEOPOLD I ascended to the throne) Geography
LatitudeApproximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement. LongitudeApproximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement. Location
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Religion and History in Belgium
Belgium was created in 1830 by a revolution in which Catholics and liberals made common cause against Dutch Protestant rule, and the constitution they wrote the following year reflected that alliance. It guaranteed freedom of worship and freedom from compelled participation, prohibited the state from interfering in the appointment of clergy, and simultaneously committed the treasury to paying clergy salaries and pensions. That combination, a church free of state control and funded by the state, was unusual in Europe and became the template for what followed.
The territory itself had been the heartland of the Counter Reformation in the north, ruled from Spain and then Austria, and it retained a dense Catholic infrastructure of parishes, orders, schools and universities; Leuven is among the oldest Catholic universities in the world. The nineteenth century then produced the school war, a prolonged struggle between Catholics and liberals over who would control primary education, which recurred in the 1950s and was settled in 1958 by the School Pact, funding both networks. Catholic schools still educate a large majority of Belgian pupils, in a country where Sunday attendance has fallen into low single figures.
Six Recognised Faiths and a Funded Secular Humanism
Belgium recognises Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Judaism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity, and pays the salaries and pensions of their ministers along with providing chaplaincies and broadcast time. In 1993 it added a category no other state had formalised in the same way: organised secular humanism, the laicite movement, was granted equivalent funding as a non confessional philosophical community, so that the country now funds the argument against religion on the same basis as religion. Pupils in state schools choose between religious instruction in one of the recognised faiths and non confessional ethics, and the Constitutional Court ruled in 2015 that they must also be able to opt out of both.
Islam was recognised in 1974, earlier than in most of Europe, but the administrative body meant to represent it has been reconstituted repeatedly amid disputes over elections, foreign influence and the state's role in choosing who speaks for a faith it funds, and the government moved in 2022 to withdraw recognition from the Grand Mosque of Brussels over Saudi influence. Two further pressures define the present. The clerical abuse revelations from 2010, including the resignation of the bishop of Bruges, accelerated a collapse in Catholic credibility that had already begun. And the prohibition of ritual slaughter without prior stunning, enacted in Flanders and Wallonia and upheld by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2020, set animal welfare against Jewish and Muslim practice in a way neither community accepted.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Catholicism is one of six state funded recognised faiths and remains the largest identified group, though practice has fallen very steeply since 2010.
This source names Belgium directly: "border between the Netherlands and Belgium."
This source names Belgium directly: "after the First World War, with Belgium, Canada, France, Great Britain, Greece, Japan and the United States as its first member states."
About 7 per cent of the population, of Moroccan and Turkish origin and concentrated in Brussels and the industrial cities; a state funded recognised faith since 1974.
This source names Belgium directly: "on Scientology's legal status in Belgium describes a 1997 Belgian parliamentary commission report that examined sectarian organizations and attached, as testimony record rather than as a formal..."
This source names Belgium directly: "limited circulation outside France and Belgium at the time, which is part of why its priority went largely unrecognized for years, a historical detail rather than a flaw in the paper's own content."
This source names Belgium directly: "United States, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Russia, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and historian Micheal Clodfelter's reference compilation for its noncombatant..."
Contains
Originated Here
Instituted at Liege in 1246 before its extension to the whole Latin church.
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