There were 3,000 fewer people registered as members of the Evangelical-Lutheran National Church of Iceland on January 1, 2011, than on January 1 the previous year.
Hallgrímskirkja, the Reykjavík landmark church. Photo by Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir.
Almost 183,400 Icelandic residents from the age of 18 onwards are now registered as members of the National Church, which is approximately 77 percent of the nation, as stated by Statistics Iceland. Last year the percentage was 79 percent, ruv.is reports.
In 2010, almost 5,100 people decided to deregister from the National Church and almost 2,000 in 2009. Most of these people did not register to any other religious community after leaving the National Church.
Last year some cases of sexual abuse surfaced within the National Church which spurred a number of people to deregister. In response, the church launched an internal investigation.
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