History of Religions in Colombia were many religious expressions of the Amerindians of modern Colombia before the Spanish arrived. Archaeological findings show a rich culture, especially in the Andean region associated with the peoples of the Chibcha family or Muisca. The sacred stories cut and left by the ancestors who survived the introduction of Spanish culture show a wide cosmology and the search of the American man poring ancestral by finding the meaning to existence. The preponderance of Roman Catholicism has deep roots in the processes of conquest and colonization by Spain after 1492. In this process, the imposition of a European culture of Catholic court determined the exclusion of any other religious expression in the Colombian soil. The sixteenth century was also a period of profound socio-political upheavals in Europe with the confrontation between Catholics loyal to the Pope and the followers of the Protestant Reformation initiated by Luther and Calvin.This not only influenced the attitude of the Spanish conquistadors in their new dominions overseas, leading to the establishment also in Cartagena de Indias of the Spanish Inquisition, in order to safeguard religious orthodoxy – cultural. Moreover, Tridentine and Baroque influences took a particular brand of Catholicism established in the country is still found in contemporary times. During the independence process started in the early nineteenth century, creole clerics sympathetic to the patriot cause and were active as agitators, chaplains, and even soldiers. Several of them even went to join the Masonic lodges which were established in those years with great acceptance by local elites. After a hesitant process, in 1835 the Vatican recognized the newly independent state and established formal relations with it, also initiated a process of Romanization of the Church.At the time, the liberal elites in power pushed for the establishment of a state increasingly free the ecclesiastical influence, leading to clashes with the clerical institution that was unwilling to cede their place in society. In this conflict episodes stand out as the expropriation of Church property, conducted by Tom s Cipriano de Mosquera in 1861-63, the declaration of custody of Worship (1861) estrangements of bishops, suppression of religious communities (1861) or expulsion of Jesuit (twice: 1851 and 1861). Finally, radical government attempts to establish an educational system “neutral” in religious material degenerated into a civil war (1877) where he actively participated several bishops and clergy. After 1886, relations between the two powers were settled again with the establishment of a new centralist constitution, which recognized the Catholic Church as the foundation of national unity.In 1887 he signed a concordat with the Vatican, which gave him control the ecclesiastical institution Colombian educational system, a privilege he held until 1973 concordat reform. The total break with the hegemony of Catholicism began to be timid with the arrival-sponsored by the liberal-to mid-nineteenth century of the Presbyterian Church, which operated primarily among affluent urban areas. In the early twentieth century came other historical Protestant churches such as Baptists and evangelicals. But from the ’60s, thanks to social, economic and cultural challenges that exist in the country, modernization, urbanization, literacy, etc., that the religious landscape begins to change noticeably. Top U.S. Pentecostalism, from fundamentalist and proselytizing, with growing acceptance, especially among popular groups.It also makes an appearance other churches and sects of Christian origin, as Adventists, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses. Later in the twentieth century inroads other Christian churches in Colombia and the International House Mission Church of God, Church of God in Christ Ministerial International , if we add other minority religious groups, such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism is derived from an increasingly diverse religious landscape in the country, maintaining the dominance of Catholicism. This diversity was recognized in 1991 in Colombia’s new constitution, which declares the country plural in the cultural, ethnic and religious.
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