Twice as many joined the church in 2023

– These are of course very pleasing numbers, says church council leader Harald Hegstad in The Norwegian Church (DNK). to Our Country.

He says he hopes the doubling of registrations can point to a positive development for the Norwegian church in the future. The figures appear in the recently published perspective report to the Institute for Church, Religion and Life Philosophy Research (KIFO). Since the corona pandemic broke out in 2020, the number of registrations has been around 2,000 a year.

At the same time, almost 17,000 people left the church last year. But the number of people joining and leaving the church is far fewer than the number who are baptized and the number of members who die. Last year, DNK lost over 35,000 members as a result of deaths, and gained 27,000 members through baptism.

– It shows how important infant baptism is for the church, because they maintain the high membership numbers. But because the sum of dead and unregistered is greater than the sum of baptized and registered, the decline will continue, but possibly flatten out a little, says Kloster.

In total, the Church of Norway loses approximately 20,000 members a year. So far in 2024, 2,000 people have signed up, and 9,000 people have signed out, shows figures from DNK.