Lutheranism is present on all inhabited continents with an estimated 110 million adherents out of which 74.2 million are affiliated with the Lutheran World Federation. As a major movement that first began the Reformation, it constitutes one of the largest Protestant branches claiming around 110 million out of 920 million Protestants. The Lutheran World Federation brings together the majority of Lutherans. Apart from it, there are also other organizations such as the International Lutheran Council and the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, as well as multiple independent Lutheran denominations.
Today, almost half of Lutherans are living in Europe. Germany accounts for one-third of European Lutherans and one-eighth of the world's Lutheran population. Most of the remaining European Lutherans are confined to the Lutheran-majority Nordic countries and to a lesser extent the Central European countries of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania (notably Transylvania) Austria, Czechia and Slovenia. United States accounts for one-eighth of the world's Lutheran population, but only around 4 million of them are members in the Lutheran World Federation. It has the most Lutherans in North America. Ethiopia and Tanzania have the largest Lutheran populations in Africa, while Indonesia in Asia, Papua New Guinea in Oceania and Brazil in South America have the largest in their respective continents.
Africa
Namibia has the highest proportion of Lutherans of any country in Africa, at about 50% of the country's population, and is the only country outside Europe to have a Lutheran majority. Other African countries with significant Lutheran populations include Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Tanzania. Africa – The Lutheran World Federation Lutheran Communion in Central and Eastern Africa Lutheran Communion in Western Africa Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa Lutherans in Africa
Asia
The largest national Lutheran community in Asia is found in Indonesia. According to the Lutheran World Federation list of member churches, thirteen Indonesian Lutheran churches or synods (the latest one added in 2014) associated with the LWF claim more than 6 million members. The largest of these is the Batak Christian Protestant Church (Indonesian: Huria Kristen Batak Protestan), which comprises almost 4.2 million members. Lutherans in India number more than 3.5 million, the largest being the 2.5-million-member Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church. Smaller Lutheran communities exist elsewhere, including Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Japan. Asia – The Lutheran World Federation Asia Lutheran Communion
Europe Membership and attendance of services in Lutheran churches, as for all of the large, state-affiliated European churches are low and decreasing. Church attendance on Sundays is no longer the norm. Often, people attend religious services only for baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals, and possibly at Christmas and Easter. Traditionally, the Lutheran youth would receive preparatory confirmation classes for one to two years around age 14, to introduce them to Christian doctrines. A large confirmation service is held once the series is completed. In some areas confirmation is now delayed until the end of the high school.
Except in Northern Europe (see below), Germany and Austria, very few seminaries are state-supported. The training for students in theology embraces a wide range of theologies including modern and contemporary movements in biblical criticism and theology. Due to agreements like the Leuenberg Agreement (1973), most Lutheran churches in Europe have church fellowship with other churches arising from the Reformation, such as the Reformed and Methodist churches.
Germany
The Lutheran faith was first established in some states of the Holy Roman Empire then and now located within Germany. After the Thirty Years' War ended in 1648, the Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic churches were recognised as independent churches. The ruler of each principality was given the right to choose one of these three denominations to become the state church of his principality (Cuius regio, eius religio). Some German states (especially in the north and east) became Lutheran (e.g. Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, Saxony, Baden), some became Reformed (Bentheim, Bremen, Lippe), while others remained Catholic (e.g. Bavaria and areas along the Rhine). Some states saw unions of Reformed and Lutherans to a united confession, such as Anhalt (1820 in Anhalt-Bernburg, 1827 in Anhalt-Dessau, and 1880 in Anhalt-Köthen), Baden (1821), Nassau (1817) and the Bavarian Palatinate (1848), while Prussia introduced an administrative-only Union of Lutheran and Reformed churches in 1817, followed by the also administrative-only Hanau Union of churches in Hesse-Cassel (1818) and a united administration for Lutheran, Reformed and Protestant union congregations in Hesse-Darmstadt (1832) and in Bremen (1877).
The regional Protestant church bodies (traditionally organised mostly along 19th-century state borders, often changed since) accept each other as equals, despite confessional differences. Thus, a Lutheran moving from a parish belonging to a Lutheran regional church body would be accepted by the locally competent congregation within another regional Protestant church body, even if this church body and its local parish are Reformed or of united Protestant confession. This is a concept rather unusual in most other countries. Members of congregations within the regional Protestant church bodies – like those of parishes within Catholic dioceses and those enrolled in Jewish congregations –, are required to pay a church tax, a surcharge on their normal income tax collected by the states of Germany and passed on to the respective religious body.
Modern mobility and increased secularisation have, however, been instrumental in shifting the traditional demographic situation, as did the movements of several million German refugees from either areas lost to Poland and the Soviet Union, or from abroad, after World War II. Since World War II, the Lutheran, Reformed and United Protestant regional churches have been members of the umbrella Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). Approximately 40% of German Protestants are members of regional church bodies forming the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD), a unit of the EKD comprising all Lutheran regional church bodies in Germany, except of Oldenburg and Württemberg, however, which are only associated. The majority of parishioners belonging to administratively united Protestant church bodies in Germany are also members of parishes which are confessionally Lutheran, however, their membership registries do not differentiate between Lutherans and parishioners of Reformed or united Protestant confession.
Besides the regional Protestant church bodies in Germany, there also exists the national Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (SELK), which formed from those opposed to the forced Union with Reformed churches in Prussia and elsewhere. The SELK is a member of the International Lutheran Council (ILC). The SELK is separate from the regional church bodies and has 33,474 baptised members as of 2017.Strukturen und Zahlen Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church (CELC), primarily located in the lands of the former East Germany, has 1,470 baptised members. The German parishioners of the Moravian Church, which is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, are also confessionally counting as Lutherans.
Nordic countries
Lutheranism is the established church in most of the Nordic countries including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. In these countries, where most people are Lutheran, the churches are supported by taxes, either indirectly through the general taxes paid by most citizens or directly in the form of a church tax.
In Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden, citizens who are members of organized religious societies contribute this church tax to their respective religious societies. However, in Norway there is no direct church tax of any kind and the state church is supported over through the national budget. As of May 21, 2012, the Church of Norway is no longer a state church. However, the Church of Norway is not a separate legal entity from the government and is instead regulated by a special church law unlike other religions. The Norwegian king is required to be a member of the Church of Norway.
The typical church tax, an income tax of about 1 to 2%, is collected only from the members of the church or other religious society, but the church also gets its share from other taxes such as the municipal corporation tax in some regions. Priests are educated at the Faculties of Theology of the state universities or private colleges.
Many major seaports contain the outposts of the respective Nordic Lutheran churches (e.g. the Norwegian Sjømannskirken, the Church of Sweden Abroad and Finnish Seamen's Mission) to provide aid, social opportunities, and pastoral care for expatriate pensioners, tourists and visiting seamen in their own language. There are several Nordic churches in London and other cities internationally.
Other parts of Europe
Lutheranism is also prominent in the Netherlands, Estonia and Latvia.
There are smaller Lutheran denominations in other parts of Europe. Examples include the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England (ELCE) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church—Synod of France and Belgium (ELC-SFB), both of which are International Lutheran Council (ILC) members. The Protestant Church of Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine, Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Hungary, the Lutheran Church in Ireland, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Italy, the Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession in Poland, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovenia, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Romania, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia and Other States, and the Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic are, among others, members of the Lutheran World Federation.
United and uniting churches Other Lutheran church bodies in Europe, affiliated with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), have been merging with other Protestant churches in Europe. On 25 May 2007, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France (EELF) and the Reformed Church of France (ERF) agreed to start discussions that will lead to the creation of a United Protestant Church of France by 2013. Another example is the Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and its merger with two Reformed churches, creating the Protestant Church of the Netherlands (PKN). The PKN is a member of both the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Lutheran World Federation.
In 1993, the Lutheran Churches of the Nordic and Baltic states entered into a full communion agreement with the Anglican Churches of Europe and the British Isles, to form the Porvoo Communion. The North American Lutheran and Anglican churches in full communion with each other are also in full communion with the Porvoo Communion. As Anglicans are in full communion with the Old Catholic Churches of the Utrecht Union, that Union began negotiations in 2005 with the Church of Sweden on entering into a full communion agreement with the Lutherans.
North America
New Sweden, a Swedish colony in the Delaware Valley on the Mid-Atlantic coast, produced the first establishment of the Lutheran Church within America. Reorus Torkillus, the first Lutheran clergyman in North America, arrived in New Sweden on April 17, 1640. The roots of organized Lutheranism in North America extend back to the formation of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, the first Lutheran synod in North America, founded in 1742 by Henry Muhlenberg.