A/HRC/13/40/Add.2 IV. Religious demography 17. The Government informed the Special Rapporteur that, as of May 2008, 11 churches7, 7 religious communities8 and 2 religious groups9 had been put on the public register in accordance with article 9 of the 2007 Law on the Legal Status of a Church, a Religious Community and a Religious Group. 18. In terms of religious demography, the 2002 official census indicates that the Macedonian Orthodox Church has around 1,300,000 believers, which amounts to 65 per cent of the country’s population. Less than 2 per cent of the total population are from other Christian communities, including from the Catholic Church (around 7,000 believers), the United Methodist Church (around 1,300 believers) and the Seventh Day Adventist Church (around 500 believers). 19. The second biggest community is the Islamic Religious Community of the Republic of Macedonia with around 674,000 believers. Consequently, Muslims amount to approximately one third of the total population. In addition, the Special Rapporteur was informed of pending applications for separate registration as a religious community by the Bectash community.10 20. Members of the Jewish Community in Skopje told the Special Rapporteur about the terrible fate their believers had to suffer during the Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944. Almost the entire Jewish Community, 7,148 people (98 per cent) of the local Jewish population, was deported to Treblinka and killed there in 1943. The Jewish community was restored in December 1944 from almost 50 survivors. According to the 2000 Law on Denationalization, the properties of Jews who were victims of the holocaust and were without legal heirs are transferred to the Fund of Holocaust of Macedonian Jews. At present, more than 70 Jews live in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, virtually all in Skopje. 21. The Special Rapporteur would like to underscore that higher figures of the number of believers are sometimes indicated by the religious communities themselves, also taking into account believers currently not living or residing in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.11 Moreover, according to the 2002 official census, around 0.5 per cent of the population is atheist or has not declared any religious affiliation. 22. Many of the Special Rapporteur’s interlocutors also pointed to the perceived correlation between ethnicity and religious affiliation, since the majority of Orthodox believers are ethnic Macedonian and the majority of Muslim believers are ethnic Albanian. In addition, they referred to lessons learned following the regional instability, which in 7 8 9 10 11 8 Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric; Catholic Church in the Republic of Macedonia; Evangelist-Methodist Church in Macedonia; Christian Adventist Church (Seventh-Day Church of Adventists) in the Republic of Macedonia; New Apostolic Church of Macedonia; Christian Adventists Church in Macedonia; Christian Baptist Church “Joyful News”; Evangelist Church in the Republic of Macedonia; Christian Center in the Republic of Macedonia; Church of God in the Republic of Macedonia; and Evangelist-Congressional Church. Islamic Religious Community of the Republic of Macedonia; Jewish Community of the Republic of Macedonia; Jehovah’s Witnesses – Christian Religious Community; Holy Seat and Crown of the Islamic Erenleric Tarikat Religious Community in Macedonia; Satia Sai Center – Skopje; Vaishna Religious Community; and Proto-Christian Community “Universal Life”. Christian Church “Word of Hope”; and the Reform Movement of Seventh-Day Adventists. See also paras. 40-41 below. Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation, Address Book of the Religious Communities in Macedonia, 2004, appendix 3: Differences in the number of believers, p. 33.