E/CN.4/2004/63/Add.2 page 6 15. The Special Rapporteur would like to stress that the reliability of a census in religious matters is relative, given that, on the one hand, questions of religion or belief are a deeply personal matter and, on the other, cumbersome sociological procedures are not necessarily the best way to ensure that the information provided on the subject is accurate. 16. As far as religious denominations are concerned, a very large majority of the Romanian population (86.7 per cent – 18,806,428 people from all over the country) claims to belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Orthodox population includes several tens of thousands of Serbs and Ukrainians. 17. The Roman Catholic Church is the second-largest religion in the country today, with 1,028,401 members (4.7 per cent). The Greek Catholic community, which had over one-and-a-half million members before 1948 and was the second-largest religion in the country at the time, had only 195,481 members (0.9 per cent) according to the 2002 census. Greek Catholics themselves estimate their numbers at 800,000. Most Greek Catholics live in Transylvania. 18. The Protestant Church is the largest of the other Christian communities, with 698,550 members (3.2 per cent). It is mostly based in Transylvania. 19. The other Christian communities are scattered around Romania, with memberships ranging in size from 2,000 to 300,000. They are: the Christian Church of the Ancient Rite (39,485 members), the Christian Evangelical Church (18,758 members), the Evangelical Augustinian Church (11,203 members), the Evangelical Lutheran Church (26,194 members), the Church of Gospel Christians (46,029 members), the Unitarian Church (66,846 members), the Baptist Church (129,937 members), the Pentecostal Church (330,486 members – 1.5 per cent of the population), the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (97,041 members) and the Armenian Church (775 members). 20. There is also a small Jewish community of 6,179 members and there are about 67,000 Muslims, most of whom are of Turkish-Tartar origin and live mainly in the south-east of the country near the Black Sea. 21. According to the 2002 census, there were also 9,271 declared atheists, 13,834 persons who had no religious affiliation (about 10,000 less than in 1992) and 18,492 who did not give any religious affiliation. 22. According to information made available to the Special Rapporteur, there are also several small religious or faith-based communities in Romania (87,225 persons in total), including the Baha’i, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Presbyterian, Falun Gong and Hare Krishna communities. III. LEGAL STATUS OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF A. Constitutional level 23. The Romanian Constitution, which is currently under revision, sets out the principle of equality of citizens regardless of their religious beliefs and prohibits any discrimination on