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Freedom of religion in France is guaranteed by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.. From the conversion of King Clovis I in 508, the Roman Catholic faith was the state religion for a thousand years, as was the case across Western Europe.
France guarantees freedom of religion as a constitutional right, and the government generally respects this right in practice. Because of a long history of anticlericalism, the state cut its institutional ties with the Catholic Church in 1905 and made a strong promise to keep the public sector free of religion. [8]
Christianity in France is the largest religion in the country. France is home to The Taizé Community , an ecumenical Christian monastic fraternity in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire , Burgundy. With a focus on youth, it has become one of the world's most important sites of Christian pilgrimage with over 100,000 young people from around the world ...
The first written records of Christians in France date from the 2nd century when Irenaeus detailed the deaths of ninety-year-old bishop Pothinus of Lugdunum and other martyrs of the 177 persecution in Lyon. The emperor Theodosius I (r. 379-95) makes Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire in 380.
The foundations of secularism, or the historical underpinnings that facilitated its emergence, largely originated within the Church itself. The investiture controversy between Pope Gregory VII and the German Emperor in the 11th century, in which the Pope sought to define his independence and that of the Church alongside the political powers, is a fundamental point.
In 1901 France was home to the largest number of Catholic Christians, where 40.5 million people, or 98.4% of the French population, were Catholics. [9] And at the beginning of the twentieth century, Paris was the largest Catholic city.
Christian tradition is a collection of traditions consisting of practices or beliefs associated with Christianity. Many churches have traditional practices, such as particular patterns of worship or rites, that developed over time. Deviations from such patterns are sometimes considered unacceptable by followers, or are regarded as heretical.
Within many Protestant Christian denominations, the word rite is often used specifically for important ceremonies that are not considered sacraments or ordinances.The 39 Articles of the Anglican Communion and the Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church state "there are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord".