TransCity

The changing demographics in the Netherlands also impacts on the religious market. While most attention is focussed on the growing Muslim population in European countries, the changes in the Christian population as a result of migration have been massive.

In the Netherlands, migrant communities are now said to form the majority of churchgoers in the largest cities, whether these churchgoers are Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox or belong to one of the many varieties of Protestantism. In the city of The Hague, church services are held in some 70 different languages.

Earlier this year, over 500 Eritreans attended a church service in the Hillegersberg city quarter of Rotterdam for the occasion of Orthodox Eastern. A small but well-known new landmark in Rotterdam has become the new Russian Orthodox church (see photo).

Christian bookshops have made a comeback thanks to the growing African, South American and Asian population. Christian political parties like CDA and Christen Unie are now tapping into the growing and diverse electorate of Christian migrants. Last February, Christen Unie party leader André Rouvoet, as part of his local elections campaign, attended a Surinamese and Ghanaian church service in the Amsterdam Bijlmer area.

Thanks to the growing culturally diverse populations, sunday mornings in the Netherlands largest cities are not as quiet anymore as they used to be for many years.