Decline in numbers leaving the Church Diocese

CultureVictoria Garza4. January 2018

Less than half the amount of people cancelled their membership from the Norwegian Church last year compared with 2016, new numbers show.

Last year, 15,463 people cancelled their membership from the Church, compared to 41,024 in the year before, according to figures the newspaper The Day has collected.

“It’s nice that the number of renouncers has gone down, and I expected that we could end at about this level last year,” said bishop and press representative Helga Haugland Byfuglien to the newspaper.

The reason so many renounced in 2016 was because a new system was introduced in which it could be done electronically.

The Oslo diocese has the highest number of those leaving in 2017 by 2,298. It is then followed by Bjørgvin, Agder and Telemark and Stavanger with about 2,000 renouncements each.

At the same time, the number of people entering the Church also went down. Last year, 2,480 people became members of the church diocese, about 700 less than the year before.

Decline in numbers leaving the Church Diocese

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