religions represented in Cuba
By The Associated Press
Although 85 percent of Cubans were nominally Roman Catholic before the
1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, church experts say
fewer than half of Cubans identify themselves as Catholics today, with a
very small percentage ever attending Mass. Other faiths exist on the
island. Among them:
--PROTESTANTS: Official figures don't exist, but most estimates say
several hundred thousand members of about 50 Protestant denominations
attend services at some 3,000 churches across the island. Established
churches include Baptist groups, Quakers, Assemblies of God, Seventh Day
Adventists and Presbyterians. About half of the Protestant denominations
belong to the government-supported Cuban Council of Churches, including
the Salvation Army, the Episcopal Church, the Church of Christ and the
Methodist Church.
--JEWS: Estimates of practicing Jews are in the hundreds. They are
mostly in Havana, where there are three synagogues and a Jewish
community center. The first Jews arrived in Cuba in the early 19th
century, mostly from Europe, and the community grew to about 5,000 by
the early 1920s. But the numbers remained in flux as many Jews used Cuba
as a stepping stone to the United States. Many left the island after the
1959 revolution when their properties were expropriated, with the
majority settling in South Florida. Cuban Jews have no local rabbi and
depend on visiting clergy for ceremonies.
--SANTERIA: Brought to the island with slaves from the region of Africa
that includes Nigeria and Benin, Santeria is practiced by easily
hundreds of thousands of Cubans, although exact estimates are hard to
come by. The syncretic faith includes some elements of Roman
Catholicism, with Santeria "orishas'' associated with specific Christian
saints.
AP-ES-03-21-08 1547EDT
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