L’importance de la dimension ethnique

Romania is a predominantly Orthodox country where no less than 18,817,975 citizens out of a total of 21,680,974 say they belong to this religion, representing a significant percentage (86.79%) (N.I.S. – National Institute of Statistics- Census, 2002). A large proportion (18,251,823 people) belong to the Romanian ethnic group. In addition there are 345,557 Roman Catholic Romanians, 17,446 Reformed Romanians, 160,896 Greek-Catholics, 276,481 Pentecostalists, 107,405 Baptists, 78,225 Seventh-Day Adventists, 1,153 Unitarians, 3,310 Muslims, 39,903 Evangelical Christians, 9,775 Old Rite Christians, 2,218 Presbyterian Lutherans, 14,325 Reformed protestants (Calvinists), 1,471 Protestants of Augsburg confession and 893 Jews. 67,200 people belong to another religion, 7,904 say they do not belong to any religion, 6,671 are atheist and 6,941 have no declared religion (N.I.S. Census, Bucarest, 2002).
The number of Romanians belonging to the Reformed, Jewish or Muslim religion can be explained by mixed marriages, which also explains why some Magyars (Hungarians) and Germans belong to the Orthodox religion.