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Andorra
Also Known As Andorran
Europe
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Andorra is the last surviving example of a European prince-bishopric arrangement: its head of state is shared, under an agreement first struck between the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia and the Count of Foix in 1278 and 1288, between the President of France and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgell, making a sitting Catholic prelate the joint sovereign of a modern parliamentary state. Roman Catholicism, introduced to the Pyrenean valleys in the early medieval period and central to Andorran identity ever since, remains the faith of the large majority of the historic population, centered on devotion to Our Lady of Meritxell, the country's patroness, and on the parish churches that predate the state's own thirteenth century constitutional origins. Andorra's 1993 constitution, which transformed the co-principality into a parliamentary democracy while preserving the co-princes as titular heads of state, acknowledges a special relationship with the Catholic Church in accordance with Andorran tradition and grants its institutions full legal capacity under their own canonical rules, a status no other faith in Andorra holds: Andorra's Muslim and Jewish minorities, among others, have no legal status as religious groups at all. A resident population swelled by tourism and finance-sector migration has diversified the country's religious makeup, adding Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and nonreligious minorities alongside the historic Catholic majority.
Facts
Law and State
Establishment StatusPrivileged Never Established 3 State Funding MechanismThe government funds Catholic religious instruction in public schools and pays the salaries of the teachers who provide it, a benefit no other faith in Andorra receives; other religious communities, including Andorra's Muslim and Jewish minorities, hold no legal status as religious groups under Andorran law and rely on rented or informal premises for worship and burial. 3 Registration or Recognition RegimeFaiths other than the Roman Catholic Church have no legal status as a religious body; the government registers other religious communities as cultural associations under the general law of associations, which does not name religious groups specifically. In February 2023 Andorra's National Commission for UNESCO convened the Interfaith Dialogue Group, whose participants raised the resulting inability of non-Catholic communities to register as anything other than a cultural association as an open religious freedom concern. 3 Concordat BasisAndorra has no concordat with the Holy See because its arrangement with the Roman Catholic Church is constitutional rather than diplomatic. Under the 1993 Constitution, the Bishop of Urgell, whose see sits across the border in Catalonia, holds the office of co-prince jointly with the President of France, a diarchy rooted in the 1278 and 1288 Pareatges that predate the modern state itself. The Constitution guarantees the Church free and public exercise of its activities and preserves what it calls relations of special co-operation with the state in accordance with Andorran tradition, recognizing the legal capacity of the Church's own bodies under their own rules. 4 Status
Legal StatusAndorra's 1993 constitution acknowledges a special relationship with the Roman Catholic Church in accordance with Andorran tradition, recognizing the full legal capacity of Catholic Church bodies under their own canonical rules; faiths other than Catholicism, including Andorra's Muslim and Jewish minorities, hold no legal status as religious groups under Andorran law, and the constitution's guarantee of freedom of religion for all residents has not extended to equivalent institutional recognition. 3 Demographics
Religious CompositionAbout 85-90% Roman Catholic, with Sunni Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Baha'i, and religiously unaffiliated minorities reflecting a resident population drawn heavily from immigration for tourism and finance work (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1 Government
Government Typeparliamentary co-principality 2 Sovereignty StatusSovereign UN member state 2 Established Year Location
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Religion and History in Andorra
Andorra is the last surviving example of a European prince-bishopric arrangement. Its head of state is shared, under an agreement first struck between the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia and the Count of Foix in 1278 and 1288, between the President of France and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgell, making a sitting Catholic prelate the joint sovereign of a modern parliamentary state. Roman Catholicism, introduced to the Pyrenean valleys in the early medieval period, has remained central to Andorran identity ever since, centered on devotion to Our Lady of Meritxell, the country's patroness, and on parish churches that predate the state's own thirteenth century constitutional origins.
Andorra's 1993 constitution transformed the ancient co-principality into a parliamentary democracy while preserving the co-princes as titular heads of state, and it acknowledges a special relationship with the Catholic Church in accordance with Andorran tradition. A resident population swelled in recent decades by tourism and finance-sector migration has diversified the country's religious makeup, adding Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and nonreligious minorities alongside the historic Catholic majority, even as the co-principality's Catholic constitutional character has remained unchanged.
The Co-Principality and Catholic Privilege in Andorra
Andorra's 1993 constitution grants Catholic Church institutions full legal capacity to act under their own canonical rules, a recognition no other faith practiced in Andorra receives. Andorra's Muslim and Jewish minorities, among others, hold no legal status as religious groups at all under Andorran law, leaving them to rely on rented or informal premises for worship and burial even though the same constitution guarantees individual freedom of religion to every resident.
The gap between individual religious freedom and institutional recognition is clearest in Andorra's schools, where the government funds Catholic religious instruction directly and pays the salaries of the teachers who provide it, a benefit unmatched for any other faith. The arrangement reflects Andorra's origin as a co-principality headed jointly by the Bishop of Urgell: even after the 1993 constitution converted the co-principality into a parliamentary democracy, the bishop's continuing role as co-prince has kept the Catholic Church's institutional standing distinct from, and considerably stronger than, that of any other religious community in the country.
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This source names Andorra directly: "The 1993 Constitution of Andorra, the country's founding charter as an independent sovereign state, republished in full English translation by the Constitute Project."
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