Switzerland, a Protestant country?

14 comments

1. My village has both, a catholic church and a protestant church. All in all I don’t think religion plays a big role in the life of most Swiss people. Especially for younger people which tend to leave their curches. Where I live the church is almost empty on sundays. You celebrate Eastern and Christmas, but thats mostly it.

   If you want to lock back to the history of Switzerland, the modern Swiss state from 1848 bases on a war between catholic and protestant cantons. Do you speak German? There is a very good documentary about it. You maybe still need subtitles because it is partly in Swiss German xD:

   https://youtu.be/zlUrZCJPxxU

2. It varies from region to region, based on their own histories. My ancestors were Huguenots who fled from France when they were being persecuted, and yes I live close to Geneva. Obviously the south has a strong catholic presence, and so does Valais and Jura iirc (the catholic regions are where you have the “faiseurs de secrets”). While only about 1/3 of the population is protestant, there aren’t many countries with more protestants other than scandinavian countries and countries where missionaries instored it (a few african countries). IMO, I’d argue that the values and identity of swiss people are overall more influenced by the protestant mindset over catholicism.
   Here’s a map that breaks down protestantism per region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Switzerland#/media/File:Karte_Religionen_der_Schweiz_2008.png

3. >so I assume that most of them converted to cultural secular no strings attached unaffiliated Protestantism.

   The other major factor for this change, in addition to unaffiliated people, is immigration. There are more catholic immigrants than protestants, e.g. some of the major immigrant groups are traditionally catholic (Italy, Portugal, etc).

4. It’s the same as with the languages. Switzerland is not just german speaking.

   For christianity there are (very) protestant cantons – driven by [Zwingli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldrych_Zwingli) and [Calvin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin) and (very) catholic cantons right beside. The reasons are typically some battles in the past where either on or the other side won and subsequently forced the entire population of the canton to convert to catholicism or protestantism.

5. Apart from what has been said already, you can easily find out, which cantons were traditionally catholic by their holidays. Where you don’t have to work on holidays like “Immaculate conception”, that’s likely a catholic canton; where you have to work on that day, rather not.

   [Huldrych Zwingli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldrych_Zwingli) was a driving figure of the Reformation back in the day, so Switzerland was kind of in the middle of it and it was a bit of a melting pot of the Reformation (the story of the Mennonites/Amish starts in Zürich and reads like an exciting thriller). That’s likely why there are still so many catholic and protestant “strongholds” in Switzerland.

6. There is a slight mentality shift between cantons that are generally more catholic and those who are more protestant. The “Innerschweiz” (mountainous cantons that share no border with a foreign country) are – as a general rule – catholic. The public holidays are cantonal, sometimes communal, but catholic cantons have a lot more public holidays than protestant cantons. Generally speaking, Zurich, Bern and Basel are very protestant.
   In my experience the Innerschweiz people are generally a bit more conservative, but they celebrate more and are a bit more relaxed. (It’s very hard to explain – it might be a city-countryside division as well)

   As others have said, this is not generally a religious thing – most people do not belong to the church and would consider themselves atheist.

7. I suppose it’s a thing only in Catholic cantons? – Yes (with exeptions) –

   Is this a Catholic or just a general Swiss thing? – General thing, also different in the different parts of switzerland –

   Are there cultural differences or let’s say some contrast between Catholic and Protestant cantons apart from the obvious language differences that Switzerland is well known for? – Don’t think so, at least not based on religion –

   So what kind of a country is this then? – A country where religion hardly plays a role –

8. You’ll probably have heard the old joke, but just in case…

   An American, an Italian and a Swiss are talking about where babies come from. The American says that at home babies are delivered by a stork at dawn. The Italian says in Italy we eat, we drink, we dance, we argue, then we make wild passionate love and get a baby 9 months later. The Swiss guy says, well, in Switzerland it varies from canton to canton.

9. Switzerland, at least traditionally, was always 50:50 between Catholics and Protestants. This balance between the denominations was also one of the reasons why back in 1919 the Swiss rejected Vorarlberg’s wish to leave the Austro-Hungarian empire (which was about to be dissolved, following their defeat in WW1) and join the Swiss Confederation instead… Protestant circles didn’t like the idea of yet another Catholic region joining Switzerland and thus disturbing the balance.

   [https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2019/05/leftover-canton-and-switzerland/](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2019/05/leftover-canton-and-switzerland/)

10. I feel like Catholics are “louder” than Protestants with their religion and opinion. But that may be because I’m from Valais 🤷🏻‍♀️

11. Switzerland is not a country , is a federation, so it doesn’t make sense to talk about one single predominant thing because it’s just different in any canton you go

12. We are very religious. It’s our whole country actually besides the Muslim guys and the other guys from out East and then the new “trendy” westerners that hate religion, cops, white people, etc.

13. Switzerland has some religious rituals which are fairly deep rooted.

    For instance Christmas. Even Muslims and Jews in Switzerland celebrate Christmas in one form or another. They will of course not attend church or pray. But most of them buy a tree and give gifts to friends and family because it’s more like a cultural ritual.

    However, other rituals like Carnival, New Years Eve or some summer festivals originate from pagan religions. They are also a deep part of the culture, even the religions they draw the tradition from do not exist anymore.

    So, I would not say that Switzerland has a dominant religions. We have several influences.

14. I think holidays are the only thing by which you can tell whether you’re living in a catholic or protestant canton anymore. Catholics have a lot more of them.

    When I think about what lies at the core of Swiss culture, I’d say it’s a Christian nation in which religion doesn’t play a major role anymore. Things like direct democracy, neutrality, punctiuality and reliability are much more important. All paired with a good dose of narrowminded conventionality and stubbornness, I might add. But that again varies from region to region.