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St. Helier has an extremely diverse range of religions and beliefs. Anglicanism, the Church of England, and Catholicism are essentially equal in the number of their adherents, and together, they make up approximately half of the population. The remainder of the residents practice Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and Buddhism with about 40% non-religious.

Reaching back into the Neolithic era, the first recorded people in Jersey left their ritual burial sites, called dolmens as well as pottery, jewelry, and tools. It is thought that they believed in an afterlife.

Saint Helier, after whom the parish is named and who is Jersey’s patron saints, brought the Christian Gospel to the island. In 1204, King Philip II Augustus conquered the Duchy of Normandy and King John of England, St. Helier, and indeed Jersey itself, remained part of the Catholic Coutances. During the Reformation, St. Helier became Calvinist. During the French Revolution, numerous French Catholics immigrated to St. Helier, and in the mid-19th century, a wave of Irish Catholics arrived.

In 1569, all of Jersey was moved to the Diocese of Winchester, but the Church of England was not reinstated as the official church of in Saint Helier until 1603 by Governor John Peyton, and it was still a few more years, 1620 to be exact, that Anglicanism became the official religion of Saint Helier and all of Jersey.

Methodism was brought to the area by Pierre Le Sueur and Jean Tentin, who came from Newfoundland to preach the faith around 1775, and Saint Helier’s first Jewish synagogue was established in 1843.

Today, there are numerous other faiths represented by the churches in Saint Helier, including the Church of Scotland, United Reformed Church, and Salvation Army. Pentecostals, Baptists, Quakers, Latter-day Saints, Islam, and Jehovah Witnesses all meet here.

 

 

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