Religion and Religious Matters of the Dutch RF

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Mbruno

According to Wikipedia, the breakdown in 2015 was as follows:

1. Unaffiliated: 50.1 %
2. Roman Catholic: 23.7 %
3. All other Christian denominations: 20,1 %
4. Islam: 4,9 %
5. Hinduism: 0,6 %
6. Buddhism: 0,4 %
7. Judaism: 0,1 %

In other words, Christians were still a sizeable minority (slightly under 44 % of the population) and, among self-declared Christians, there was an approximately 54/46 split between Catholics and other Christian denominations (mostly Protestant).

The Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) properly, which is the denomination the RF is affiliated with, accounted for 5.7 % of the population in 2015 whereas membership in other Dutch reformed churches stood at approximately 9.8 % of the population.

Can you provide the exact link to the Wikipedia page you used? As there are several sources of data and they don't necessarily correspond with each other.

Edit: I think I found the link for the first list here; I didn't find the link to your data for the specific denominations in 2015; but noticed that the 9.8% excluded over 300.000 'other members' (that especially are part of the previous 'Hervormde' denomination); so that would add another 1,5 = 2% to the total of the PKN.

Like Tatiana Maria I mostly looked at years close to 2002 (the time of the wedding):
For 2000: 21% protestant (+ 8% other; which most likely at least half is protestant as well), 32% catholics, 40% unaffiliated
And for 2005: 21% protestant (= 9% other; which most likely at least half is protestant as well), 30% catholics, 41% unaffiliated

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Tatiana Maria

An example of a king who raised his children in his wife's denomination without changing his own denomination was Leopold I, King of the Belgians (Protestant), who married a French princess (Catholic). In his case it was a sensible solution as it avoided what would have been an ostensibly opportunistic and insincere change for Leopold and showcased the religious tolerance of the Belgians while still guaranteeing that the kings of the future would belong to the same church as their subjects.

The Luxembourgian grand ducal family would be another example. Although that was by chance not by design. So, of course, opportunities that arise with a marriage could strategically be used in such case. However, that's still different than a bride coming into a royal family demanding that the family will follow her religion instead of agreeing to raise the children in the religion of the royal family's choosing.

[Mbruno]

Originally Posted by Somebody

Can you provide the exact link to the Wikipedia page you used? As there are several sources of data and they don't necessarily correspond with each other.

Edit: I think I found the link for the first list here; I didn't find the link to your data for the specific denominations in 2015; but noticed that the 9.8% excluded over 300.000 'other members' (that especially are part of the previous 'Hervormde' denomination); so that would add another 1,5 = 2% to the total of the PKN.

Like Tatiana Maria I mostly looked at years close to 2002 (the time of the wedding):
For 2000: 21% protestant (+ 8% other; which most likely at least half is protestant as well), 32% catholics, 40% unaffiliated
And for 2005: 21% protestant (= 9% other; which most likely at least half is protestant as well), 30% catholics, 41% unaffiliated

The link is


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religi...he_Netherlands




The main difference between the 2002 and 2015 figures seems to have been the increase in the "unaffiliated" column.


Among self-declared Christians, as I said, there was an approximate 54/46 split between Catholics and non-Catholics, which is not that far from 50/50 actually.


EDIT: Apparently, the Wikipedia figures came from Statistics Netherlands, so I suppose they are reliable.

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Mbruno

The link is


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religi...he_Netherlands

The main difference between the 2002 and 2015 seems to have been the increase in the "unaffiliated column".

Among self-declared Christians, as I said, there was an approximate 54/46 split between Catholics and non-Catholics, which is not that far from 50/50 actually.

EDIT: Apparently, the Wikipedia figures came from Statistics Netherlands, so I suppose they are reliable.

The CBS's categorization is rather confusing given that they use three categories for people that might be members of one and the same church (PKN) - or from different churches. My main question was about whether it related to membership versus self-declared affiliation as those numbers differ quite significantly. Apparently, the CBS works with 'self-identification' (of a selected sample - so, hopefully they manage to get a representative sample; I could see some denominations/religious groups being less likely to fill out such questionnaires - they have noticed this issue themselves for people from non-western background; so made some adaptations in 2005; but their could be others). The dependency on self-identification also means that differences in how people identify in various denominations (Catholics likely to longer identify as Catholics than other Christians if both would no longer adhere to the doctrines of the church) play into the numbers and might result in significant differences between self-identification and church membership.

Nonetheless, the king is both a member of the PKN and would also self-identify as a protestant. So, in his case there isn't any doubt. And the general trend that the Dutch are less and less religious is also quite clear...

[Durham]

Am I right in thinking that Dutch Catholics are predominantly in the south of the country?

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Durham

Am I right in thinking that Dutch Catholics are predominantly in the south of the country?

Yes, you are! As I stated in one of my posts: they are mostly located in the provinces Noord-Brabant and Limburg. These are the two larger provinces in the South; the third southern province Zeeland contains a significant protestant (including reformed) population. There are smaller numbers of Catholics in the other provinces but few in the three most Northern provinces of the country: Friesland, Groningen & Drenthe.

[Durham]

Originally Posted by Somebody

Yes, you are! As I stated in one of my posts: they are mostly located in the provinces Noord-Brabant and Limburg. These are the two larger provinces in the South; the third southern province Zeeland contains a significant protestant (including reformed) population. There are smaller numbers of Catholics in the other provinces but few in the three most Northern provinces of the country: Friesland, Groningen & Drenthe.

Thank you. I should have been less lazy & read the thread! Must try harder.

So the provinces stayed together despite the religious differences from north to south.

[Mbruno]

Originally Posted by Durham

Thank you. I should have been less lazy & read the thread! Must try harder.

So the provinces stayed together despite the religious differences from north to south.

Most of the Catholic southern provinces in the (original) Low Countries are now part of Belgium.


Actually, the history goes (roughly) like that: in the 15th century, most of today's Belgium and the Netherlands was under the sovereignty of the ducal house of Burgundy (a cadet branch of the royal house of France, whose native language was also French). They passed by marriage to the House of Habsburg when Archduke Maximilian(later the Holy Roman Emperior Maximilian I) married Mary of Burgundy in 1477. Their heir, Philip the Handsome, married Juana, the daughter of the Spanish Catholic Kings, and their son, the future emperor Charles V, inherited both the Crowns of Castile and Aragon, the Habsburg lands and the Burgundian territories.



Following the Reformation, the seven northern provinces, which had become mostly Protestant by then, became an independent republic, whereas the other southern provinces, known as the Spanish Netherlands (roughly today's Belgium), were ruled by the Habsburg Spanish kings until the War of Spanish Succession, when they were ceded by the Treaty of Utrecht to the Austrian Habsburgs. During the Spanish rule, the Protestant reformation was suppressed in the South as in other parts of the Spanish empire (the world's largest empire at the time !).


Following the French Revolution, the Austrian Netherlands and, later, the Dutch republic were occupied by the French. After Napoleon was defeated by a coalition of British, German and Dutch forces, the Congress of Vienna established a united kingdom under Willem I of Orange-Nassau who ruled over the present-day Netherlands and Belgium (and was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg in personal union). The united kingdom was broken by the Belgian revolution of 1830, which created the Kingdom of Belgium and installed Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (the widower of Princess Charlotte of Wales) as the first King of the Belgians.


Leopold himself was a Protestant (Lutheran), but he married the daughter of the King of the French, who was Catholic, and raised his sons in the Catholic faith, to conform to the majority religion in Belgium.


EDIT: If King Philippe had never married nor had legitimate issue, which was what many people actually expected prior to his surprise engagement to Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz, he would have been probably succeeded one day by Prince Amedeo, Princess Astrid's eldest son, whose father is a Habsburg and Archduke of Austria-Este. So the Habsburgs would have been returned to their allegedly rightful place as kings of Belgium. That is still a possibility if Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, marries a Habsburg.

[Durham]

Thank you for taking the time to outline that history.

My knowledge is sketchy but that certainly helps fill a few gaps.

A continuing United Kingdom of the Netherlands would have been very good for the European balance of power I think. Shame it didn't last. But that's going very off topic.

[Mbruno]

Originally Posted by Durham

Thank you for taking the time to outline that history.

My knowledge is sketchy but that certainly helps fill a few gaps.

A continuing United Kingdom of the Netherlands would have been very good for the European balance of power I think. Shame it didn't last. But that's going very off topic.

Just as a tip, you can experience most of that timeline ( at least from the Dutch perspective) by looking at the paintings at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Especially the Reformation in the Netherlands, the war of independence against Spain, the war(s) against the French, and the Belgian revolution.

[An Ard Ri]

The Dutch king,queen and daughters were granted an audience with Pope Francis back in April 2016 and the king/queen attended his Papal inauguration in 2013.

https://www.newmyroyals.com/2016/04/...h-pope-in.html

I'm not sure if queens Wilhelmina or Juliana ever traveled to the Vatican and met with the Pontiff of the day.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by Somebody

The Luxembourgian grand ducal family would be another example. Although that was by chance not by design. So, of course, opportunities that arise with a marriage could strategically be used in such case. However, that's still different than a bride coming into a royal family demanding that the family will follow her religion instead of agreeing to raise the children in the religion of the royal family's choosing.

But actually that was the cae in the luxemburgian Family. Had Maria Anna of Braganza agreed to raise all children protestant this would still be the religion of the GDF Family.

Another case is the present and only line of the House of Württemberg but at that time they became catholic it was only one of several junior lines.

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Stefan

But actually that was the cae in the luxemburgian Family. Had Maria Anna of Braganza agreed to raise all children protestant this would still be the religion of the GDF Family.

Another case is the present and only line of the House of Württemberg but at that time they became catholic it was only one of several junior lines.

By design they expected the heir (i.e., all sons) being raised protestant... That they ended up with 6 daughters instead had the unexpected result that the family turned Catholic.

[cathy50]

I am new here and have a question concerning religion in the RF.
why was this so long the dutch royals could jot marry a catholic without loosing their place n succesion though so many catholic do live in the country? did the catholic people never rebel against this odd fact?
thank you, maybe there is already information somewhere but i did not see some yet.
i know maxima is catholic so i think now the rules are different

[Mbruno]

Originally Posted by cathy50

I am new here and have a question concerning religion in the RF.
why was this so long the dutch royals could jot marry a catholic without loosing their place n succesion though so many catholic do live in the country? did the catholic people never rebel against this odd fact?
thank you, maybe there is already information somewhere but i did not see some yet.
i know maxima is catholic so i think now the rules are different

The Dutch royals were never actually barred from marrying Roman Catholics. They just didn't do it because their family has been historically associated with the Protestant church since the 16th century and because, up to the mid-20th century at least, the majority of the Dutch population was still Protestant.


Dutch kings married women of other faiths though in the past. King Willem II for example married Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna who was originally Russian Orthodox. I don't know if she ever converted to the Dutch Reformed church.


The only country AFAIK where it was explicitly prohibited for a successor to the Crown to marry a Roman Catholic and still remain in the line of succession was the UK, but that is no longer the case.



Many Protestant kingdoms still require the King to be Protestant though (namely Denmark, Norway, Sweden and obviously the UK). Queen Margrethe's late husband was Catholic and converted to the Lutheran church after marrying her although that was not legally required in Denmark.


As an Argentinian, you may remember that there was an expectation that Maxima would convert too and she even said she was considering it, but ultimately she never did it. I don't know if she is particularly religious, but I don't think she ever truly intended to leave the Catholic church.

[An Ard Ri]

Queen Anna's funeral service was conducted with the devine liturgy of the Russian Orthodox church by 3 Orthodox Priests and her chaplain and was buried at the Protestant Nieuwe Kerk in Delft .The King,Queen and Prince of Orange did not attend the Russian Orthodox Funeral Service at the Hague on March 17th.

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Mbruno

The Dutch royals were never actually barred from marrying Roman Catholics. They just didn't do it because their family has been historically associated with the Protestant church since the 16th century and because, up to the mid-20th century at least, the majority of the Dutch population was still Protestant.

Yes indeed, they were never barred from marrying Roman Catholics (William the Silent himself had Roman Catholic brides).

In addition, one of the reasons the family was so prominent (even before they officially became king they were stadtholders) was because of their fight against the Catholic Spaniards who fought to keep the Netherlands and to keep it part of the Roman Holy Empire - and, therefore, Catholic. Instead, the eighty years' war, with a leading role for the princes of Orange, resulted in an independent country and offered freedom to practice the protestant (Calvinist) religion - and even allowed the Catholics to practice their religion (which wasn't supported by everyone).

So, from this historical perspective, it made a lot of sense to expect the family of the Prince of Orange to be protestant as they needed to keep the Roman Catholics who previously did not look favorably upon those not being Catholic (to say it mildly) at bay.

[An Ard Ri]

Catholics were allowed to worship in secret but public Catholic worship was prohibited.All churches in the United Provinces were taken over by the Reformed church,the Dutch hierarchy was not restored until 1853.

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by An Ard Ri

Catholics were allowed to worship in secret but public Catholic worship was prohibited.All churches in the United Provinces were taken over by the Reformed church,the Dutch hierarchy was not restored until 1853.

Yes, thanks for that important clarification. They would have church services in 'schuilkerken' (hide out churches) that couldn't be seen from the street. They weren't just used by Roman Catholics but also by the Remonstrants, Anabaptists and several other churches (that weren't part of the Dutch Reformed church). We even got married in such a church building :)

So, while their was 'freedom of conviction' there wasn't 'freedom of religion' - with the Dutch Reformed Church being THE church that all Dutch people were supposed to be members of. In addition, Jews were fully free to practice their religion. True to Dutch culture, there was a 'toleration policy' for schuilkerken. After a little while - if they paid and made sure that their church buildings weren't visible (in cities) or were outside of the village and clearly of a lesser prominence than the Dutch Reformed church they could organize their religious services.

[An Ard Ri]

The Dutch Reformed church had a very privileged position but was never made the State Religion,other faiths were tolerated .Roman Catholics only began to enjoy more religious freedom from the 19th Century onwards.