In Italy there are 836 different religions and more Christian than Muslim immigrants, shows some of the data from a study of Cesnur (Center for Studies on New Religions) which was presented today in Turin. As for information about immigrants, Cesnur reviewed data from annual reports of the Caritas / Migrantes.
”We counted different things” explained Massimo Introvigne and Pier Luigi Zoccatelli, Director and Deputy Director of the Center, respectively, “Caritas counts immigrants on the basis of religion they had in their country of origin, we looked specifically at those practicing in Italy.” So based on information from Caritas, Muslim immigrants in Italy number approximately 1,651,000 however, Cesnur found that this was actually closer to 1,360,000 and immigrants Orthodox Christians fell from 1,483,000 to 1,295,000.” While in some collective imagination” explain Introvigne and Zoccatelli “an immigrant is most likely non-Catholic and almost by definition a Muslim is wrong, most immigrants are now non-Muslims, the majority of them are non-Catholic Christians, Orthodox and Pentecostal Protestants adding that these groups now number more than Muslims.” As a whole, immigrants who are other religions (non-Catholic) number 3,218,000. In other words, those belonging to religious minorities are 2.5% of Italian citizens and 7.6% of non-citizens. Among Italian citizens, according to the same data, the largest minority is Protestant, with 435,000 faithful. The second religious organization among Italian citizens after the Catholic Church is Jehovah’s Witnesses, with a little more than 400,000 faithful, followed by Buddhists (135,000). The Italian Jewish are “of great historical and cultural importance, but only constitute 36,000 people.”
