Creștinismul mondial la cinci sute de ani de la Reformă (1517-2017)
World Christianity Five Hundred Years After the Reformation (1517-2017)

Some Historical Perspectives and Statistical Landmarks

Summary/Abstract: The present article assumes the risky task to provide a synthetic view on the historical milestones related to the spread of Christianity on all continents of the earth since the European Reformation time until today. Through the European colonization the Christians brought the Gospel to America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. While the Protestants organized themselves in Europe in the 16th century, the Catholic missionaries were already spreading the Christian faith in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This article focuses on the historical landmarks of the Christian missions in these new areas and shows the main characteristics of each new Christianized continent. The historical perspectives are accompanied by a special focus on the numerical situation and the trends of contemporary Christianity on all continents. To present this historical development we have systematically organized the material on continents, trying to follow in each case (Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania) the above-mentioned approaches. Since the major Western countries (Spain, Portugal, England, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Germany), which have created colonies outside Europe, were both Catholic and Protestant, they exported the Christian fragmentation from Europe to the other continents. After about five hundred years of Christian missions worldwide, in 2010 out of the 6.9 billion inhabitants of the earth, about 2.3 billion were Christians, 1.5 billion were Muslims and 948 million were Hindus. Estimates for 2020 show for the first three world religions the following situation: of the 7.6 billion people on Earth 2.5 billion shall be Christians, 1.8 billion Muslims and one billion Hindus. The today's globalization and the technological revolution have led to very rapid changes in the Christian denominational composition, so that a very precise prediction on the future of the Christian evolution in many areas of the world remains quite difficult.

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