As of November 2011, 58.9% of all Belarusians adhere to some kind of religion; out of those, Orthodox Christianity makes up about 82%. Catholicism exists mostly in the western regions, and there are also different denominations of Protestantism (especially during the time of union with Protestant Sweden). Other minorities practice Judaism and other religions. Many Belarusians converted to the Russian Orthodox Church after Belarus was annexed by Russia following the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a consequence, the Russian Orthodox church now has more members than other denominations.
Belarus's Roman Catholic minority, which constitute about 15% of the country's population and is concentrated in the western part of the country, especially around Hrodna, is made up of a mixture of Belarusians and the country's Polish and Lithuanian minorities. In a statement to the media regarding Belarusian-Vatican ties, President Lukashenko stated that Orthodox and Catholic believers are the "two main confessors in our country". The total Roman Catholic population has dropped to 12% of religious believers, according to a 2011 report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Belarus was once a major center of European Jewry, with 10% of the population being Jewish. But since the mid-20th century, the number of Jews has been reduced by war, starvation, deportation, and emigration, so that today it is a very small minority of less than one percent. The Lipka Tatars, numbering over 15,000, are predominately Muslims. According to Article 16 of the Constitution, Belarus has no official religion. While the freedom of worship is granted in the same article, religious organizations deemed harmful to the government or social order can be prohibited
