Esperanto and the Religions: An Unexpected History

Esperanto has no religion, and has said so since 1905. Yet more faiths have taken it up than any other constructed language: a Catholic union recognised in canon law, a Protestant league, Quakers, Buddhists, Bahá'ís and even atheists. This page tells the Christian story and gives you the words; Oomoto and the Bahá'ís have their own page.

kristano, kristanismo: the words of faith

The words come from the international stock, and the affixes do the sorting. -an- makes a member, -ism- a doctrine, -ej- a place:

• Ŝi estas kristano. - She is a Christian.
• Ni iras al la preĝejo. - We are going to church.

Where the root starts decides the pattern:

pastro or pastoro?

Two roots, one letter apart, and not a spelling slip. Pastro is the general word; pastoro is a Protestant one only:

The glosses: the priest celebrated Mass; the pastor preached; the bishop visited us; the Mass was in Esperanto. The building is a preĝejo; the Church as an institution is the eklezio.

Neutral by design: Zamenhof's starting point

Zamenhof was a Jew from Białystok, and the religious question was never abstract for him. He wrote his own universalist creed, homaranismo, and kept it apart from the language on purpose.

The movement made him choose. At Boulogne in 1905 the interfaith stanza of his Preĝo sub la verda standardo (Christians, Hebrews or mahometanoj, all children of God) was left out of the recitation; at Kraków in 1912 he gave up every official role, as the interna ideo page tells in full.

So the pattern was set before any faith group existed. The movement stays neutral; believers take up the language because it is neutral, and none of them speaks for it.

The Catholics got there first

The chronology is often told backwards: the magazine came before the union.

• La gazeto aperis antaŭ la asocio. - The magazine appeared before the association.

Espero Katolika was long called the oldest Esperanto magazine still appearing. The record has gaps: it stopped in both world wars, and no issues appeared in 2022 and 2023, until four 2023 issues were printed together in March 2024. Founded in 1903 and published, with interruptions, ever since is the accurate sentence.

What the Vatican has actually done

More than sceptics expect, less than the movement sometimes claims. Four dated facts:

The 1990 approval came from the Congregation for Divine Worship, a Vatican department. The 1992 decree, from the Pontifical Council for the Laity, made IKUE an international association of the faithful of pontifical right: a real canonical category, not a courtesy.

Vatican Radio began weekly, went twice weekly in 1981 and three times a week from October 1998. It is one of the broadcasters in the listening guide.

John Paul II also addressed gatherings directly in Esperanto, in 1991 and 1997. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, Archbishop of Prague, celebrated Mass in Esperanto at the 1995 IKUE congress.

The Protestants, and the magazine that predates them

The same pattern again. Dia Regno (God's Kingdom) was founded in February 1908 by a German engineer, Paul Hübner. The league, Kristana Esperantista Ligo Internacia (KELI), followed in 1911, founded in Antwerp during that year's World Congress. Its members are mostly Protestant, with some Catholics and Orthodox (ortodoksuloj).

• La revuo Dia Regno aperas ekde 1908. - The magazine Dia Regno has appeared since 1908.

For fifty years the two leagues also met together. The first joint Ekumena Esperanto-Kongreso was held in 1968, made possible by the Second Vatican Council's opening to other Christians. None met from 2019 to 2024, and for 2025 to 2027 IKUE and KELI chose separate congresses. KELI met in Görlitz in 2026.

The Bible

The complete Esperanto Bible is the Londona Biblio of 1926, published by the British and Foreign Bible Society with the National Bible Society of Scotland. Zamenhof translated the Old Testament himself. The New Testament was the work of a committee of English and Scottish clergy, completed in 1910 and published in 1912.

Dictionaries treat it as a model of good Esperanto: the big dictionary PIV cites it constantly. The reading list puts it on the shelf of great translations.

The smaller shelves

The Buddhist league's own name, Budhana Ligo Esperantista, uses budh- with an h. The word page leads with the buda- spelling, budaismo, and both are in use.

An atheist association on a page about faiths proves the point about neutrality from the other end: the language belongs to all of them, and to none.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Sort ten words from this page into faith, person and place.
2. Say pastro and pastoro aloud, and use each in a sentence.
3. Read Oomoto and the Bahá'ís, the Japanese faith and the world religion with a page of their own.

See also

• Oomoto and the Bahá'ís - the Japanese faith and the world religion that took up the language.
• Esperantismo and the interna ideo - the neutrality, from the founding texts.
• Homaranismo - Zamenhof's own creed.
• Festivals and the calendar - Kristnasko, Pasko and the feast names.
• The history of Esperanto - the persecutions faith groups shared.
• Literature - where the Londona Biblio sits.