Belief in heaven and hell still strong, survey shows

Almost one in two (44.3%) Greek respondents in the World Values Survey (WVS) said they believe hell exists. The latest poll, which began in 2017 and ended in 2021, was part of a global project that has been around since 1981.

Almost 82% of Greek respondents said religion is very or fairly important to them, compared to Germany (38.5%), Japan (14.5%) and Morocco (98.6%). Most Greeks (91.7%) said they believe in God, on a par with countries such as Argentina (92.4%), Armenia (93.5%) and Turkey (94.5%), among many others. 

However, belief in God seems to have decreased since the survey began, as suggested by the results (78.7%) of a separate poll in 2022 by research organization Dianeosis.

Moreover, the Greek responses in the WVS did not always side clearly with the Church. For example, 66.4% said they disagreed with the statement “when science and religion clash, religion is always right.”