Religion
Religion is very prominent in Louisville which hosts several religious institutions of various faiths. There are 135,421 Catholic Louisvillians who attend 163 Catholic churches in the city. The Cathedral of the Assumption located in downtown Louisville is the seat of the Archdiocese of Louisville. Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey, the monastic home of Catholic writer Thomas Merton, is in nearby Bardstown, Kentucky and also located in the archdiocese.
A sizable number of Louisvillians belong to a Protestant faith. One in three Louisvillians is Southern Baptist belonging to one of 147 local Southern Baptist Congregations. Southeast Christian Church, a megachurch and one of the largest Christian churches in the United States, is located in Louisville. The city is home to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Additionally, Louisville is home to the oldest African American Seventh-day Adventist congregation, Magazine Street Seventh-day Adventist Church.
There is a Jewish population of around 8,500 in the city and five synagogues. Most Jewish families originally came from Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century, and around 800 Soviet Jews have moved to Louisville since 1991. Jewish immigrants founded Jewish Hospital, which was once the center of the city's Jewish district. Jewish hospital recently merged with the Catholic healthcare system CARITAS.
Kentucky's only Hindu temple opened in suburban Louisville in 1999, and had about 125 members and two full-time priests in 2000. In 2001, there were an estimated four to ten thousand practicing Muslims in Louisville attending six local mosques.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
