The two main religions in Eritrea are Christianity and Islam. However, the number of adherents of each faith is subject to debate. Estimates of the Christian share of the population range from 47% to 53%, while estimates of the Muslim share of the population range from 37% to 52%.

Most Eritrean Christians belong to the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, although a minority is affiliated with the Eritrean Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations. Eritrean Muslims are predominantly Sunni.

Apart from the officially recognized denominations of Christianity and Sunni Islam, all other faiths and denominations are in principle required to undergo a registration process; in practice they are not allowed to register. Among other things, the government's registration system requires religious groups to submit personal information on their membership to be allowed to worship.

Faiths and denominations There are two major religions in Eritrea: Christianity (four denominations) and Islam (only the Sunni school). However, the number of adherents is subject to debate.

In the 2010 Eritrea Population and Health Survey, conducted by the Eritrean National Statistics Office and the Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies, 61.4% of all survey respondents reported being Christian (56.3% Orthodox, 4.2% Catholic, and 0.8% Protestant), with 38.4% reporting being Muslim, and the remaining 0.2% adhering to traditional faiths. Among women, who made up 87.6% of those surveyed, 60.7% reported being Christian and 39.0% Muslim. In a similar survey of Eritrean women conducted in 2002, 63.0% reported being Christian (57.8% Orthodox, 4.6% Catholic, and 0.7% Protestant), with 36.6% reporting being Muslim. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that, by 2020, 62.9% of the population would be Christian, while 36.6% would be Muslim, with the rest following other religions. Pew based its estimate of Eritrea's religious composition on the 2002 survey referenced above. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom's 2021 annual report states that the country's population is "split in half between Christians (49 percent) and Muslims (49 percent)". In a 2016 report by Aid to the Church in Need, that organization estimated around 50 percent of Eritrea's population adhered to Islam, and 48 percent followed Christianity, with all remaining religions accounting for two percent. According to ACS-Italia estimate, around 52% of Eritrea's population in 2017 adhered to Islam, and 46% followed Christianity, with the remaining 2% of residents practicing other religions, including traditional faiths and animism. The 2011 edition of the Encyclopedia of Global Religion matches the Pew Research Center estimate of 63% Christian, breaking it down further to: 58% Orthodox; 5% Roman Catholic; and less than 1% Protestant. That report further analyzed the regional distribution within Eritrea:

+Religious affiliation in Eritrea Region Christians Muslims Other Maekel Region, Debub Region, Gash-Barka Region, Anseba Region, Northern Red Sea Region,Semienawi Keyih Bahri Southern Red Sea Region,Debubawi Keyih Bahri

History of religion in Eritrea The Kingdom of Aksum, covering much of modern-day Eritrea and the Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia, arose somewhere around the first or second centuries.Munro-Hay, Stuart (1991) Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity . Edinburgh: University Press, p. 65 .Henze, Paul B. (2005) Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia, . The Aksumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. Over 200 years after the kingdom's formation, it adopted Christianity under King Ezana.Aksumite Ethiopia. Workmall.com (24 March 2007). Retrieved on 3 March 2012. Eritrea was also one of the first Islamic settlements in Africa, as a group of Muslims facing persecution in Mecca migrated to the Kingdom of Aksum. Islam spread to Ethiopia and Eritrea around 615 AD with the arrival of Uthman ibn Affan, one of the Sahabah (companions) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Uthman had been driven out of Hejaz and found shelter at Axum in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia under the protection of the Axumite king, Aṣḥama ibn Abjar.

Another great power came in the person of the Imam of Harar in Ethiopia, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, also known as Ahmad Gurey or Gragn. Al-Ghazi led Muslim forces consisting of Somali, Harari, Oromo, Afar, Saho, Argobba, Hadiya, Silte and Gurage soldiers from present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia. In 1530 he began to attack the plateau. Within four years he laid waste to the majority of the Christian highlands, including the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Only by surrender and conversion could people save their lives. Only the intervention of the Portuguese transformed the flow of events. They landed at Massawa in 1541 and helped the Eritreans and Ethiopians to drive the Imams forces from the plateau. The Muslim forces dispersed, retreated and disappeared.

Catholicism was first brought to Eritrea by the Jesuits in 1600. In 1632, the order was expelled from Eritrea for wanting to convert the country (an Orthodox country) to Catholicism. In the 19th century, the Italians began to bring Eritrea under their sphere of influence and introduced Roman Catholicism again. Missionaries appeared in the 19th century and established the Lutheran and Evangelical churches. These organizations have been allowed to continue to practice. New groups, however, have been discouraged from establishing a base in Eritrea.

During Italian colonialism, Catholicism became quite widespread, mostly due to Italian settlement in Eritrea. At the beginning of the 1940s nearly 28% of the population of Italian Eritrea were Catholic, most of whom were Italians.Bandini, Franco. Gli italiani in Africa, storia delle guerre coloniali 1882-1943 Chapter: Eritrea However, the number of Italians in Eritrea decreased at the end of WWII under British military administration (which also had religious violence between Christians and Muslims), and especially after Eritrea came under Ethiopian authority in 1950, thus diminishing the Catholic Church's importance.

Under Ethiopian rule and the Eritrean War of Independence, the role of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was strengthened, and it legitimized Ethiopian rule in Eritrea, which was controversial. Ethiopian propaganda framed the Eritrean struggle for liberation as a "Muslim separatist movement", which strengthened feelings among Eritrean Muslims that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was a tool of the Ethiopian state.

During Derg rule, the Ethiopian state had a policy of state atheism, which was unpopular, especially in Eritrea. However, the Derg also co-opted many religions despite repressing them, such as with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. They also for the first time recognized Islam in Ethiopia, co-opting it with the newly founded Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council.

Christianity

The various estimates shown above place Christianity (all denominations) as the religion of between 47% and 63% of the population of Eritrea. While elsewhere on the continent, Christianity in Africa was primarily introduced by European missionaries, this was not the case with the Tigray-Tigrinya people of Eritrea and Tigray Region in neighbouring Ethiopia (or with the Amhara people of Ethiopia). The ancient empire of the Kingdom of Aksum centered in north Tigray and the central highlands of Eritrea had intimate connections with the Mediterranean world in which Christianity grew. Christianity arrived in the Eritrean and Tigrayan area in the 4th century, growing dynamically in the pre-existing Jewish/Animistic mixed environment. The Tigrayan-Tigrinyas thus converted to Christianity centuries before most of Europe, thereby establishing one of the oldest state churches in the world. The Eritrean Orthodox have their origins in the 4th century Coptic mission of Syrian Frumentius in East Africa, when the first Archbishop was elected for the Aksumite Empire, under Ezana of Axum (r. 320–360). Among ecclesiastical buildings, most notable date from the 4th to the 14th centuries; for example Libanos, Bizen and Sina.

Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church

According to surveys, Orthodox Christians make up 56–58% of the population. A large majority of the Christian population of Eritrea belongs to the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, The Eritrean Church was recognized by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria following independence in 1993, and in 1994 the two neighbouring churches affirmed their respective status. In April 1998 the former Archbishop Abune Phillipos of Asmara was elevated to the rank of Patriarch. He died in 2002 and was succeeded by Abune Yacob. The reign of Abune Yacob as Patriarch of Eritrea was very brief as he died not long after his enthronement, and he was succeeded by Abune Antonios as 3rd Patriarch of Eritrea. Abune Antonios was elected on 5 March 2004 and enthroned as the third Patriarch of the Orthodox Tewahedo Church of Eritrea on 24 April 2004. Pope Shenouda III presided at the ceremony in Asmara, together with the Holy Synod of the Eritrean Orthodox Church and a Coptic Orthodox Church delegation. Antonios was later formally deposed by the government. However, many believe that Abune Antonios was wrongly deposed and still consider him Patriarch. Many Eritrean Orthodox followers disagree with the Eritrean government making decisions in religious matters.

Catholicism

Catholics make up 4–5% of the Eritrean population. The Eritrean Catholic Church and Roman Catholic Church has dioceses of Asmara, Keren and Barentu. Catholics in Eritrea mainly follow the Geʽez variant of the Alexandrian Rite, but the Roman Rite is also used. There are four territorial jurisdictions in the country known as eparchies. Before the era of Italian Eritrea, Roman Catholicism was already introduced into the country by Saint Justin de Jacobis and the Vincentian Fathers. Today the church is a distinctly Eritrean church, using the Geʽez language in the liturgy, although Masses continue to be celebrated also in Italian and Latin for the small Italian and Italo-Eritrean community, mainly in Asmara. When Eritrea was an Italian colony, all the colonists and the Italian military were of the Latin Church: in 1940 they constituted 11% of the total population. The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary was their main church. So, in the early 1940s, Catholicism was the religion of nearly 28% of people in the colony of Italian Eritrea.

Protestantism

Protestants, sometimes known by the slang name P'ent'ay, in Eritrea make up between less than 1% to 5% of the Christians. A minor church is the Kale Hiywot Church of Eritrea. Protestant denominations include Christian Brethren, Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea. In 1926, Swedish missionaries founded the Evangelical/Lutheran Church of Eritrea. However, there was tension between the Catholic Church as the Roman Catholic Italians resisted and discouraged the spread of Protestantism in their colony and even lay prohibitions and numerous constraints on the activities of the Swedish missionaries. The Lutheran Church of Eritrea and its Swedish and Eritrean missionaries were the ones who translated the Bible from Geʽez, only understood by higher clergymen, into the Tigrinya language and other local languages and their main goal was to reach and "enlighten" as many people as possible in the world through education.

Islam

The various estimates shown above place Islam as the religion of between 37% and 52% of the population of Eritrea. Whatever the total share of the overall population, a 2009 report finds that over 99% of Eritrean Muslims are Sunnis, with less than 1% Shias.

History