RELIGION

These festivals overlap with folkloric events that draw on Catholic tradition. A well-known example is the Mama Negra (black mother) Festival in Latacunga, which combines a celebration of the Earth's fertility with honoring the Virgin of Mercedes, the town's patron saint.

In the month of November the Virgin of Quinche draws pilgrims from the major ethnic groups of Ecuador; she thus serves as an image of an ethnically united nations.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Census, in 2012:

80.4% Catholic
11.3% Protestant
7.9% Atheist
6.9% Other
1.3% Jehovah's Witness
0.11% Agnostic

Since the Spanish colonization, Ecuador became a Roman Catholic country. Catholicism was a central part of Hispanic culture, defining the ethos and worldview of the time. The church was virtually the only colonial institution dealing with education or the care of the needy. It amassed great wealth through donations, dowries, and outright purchases. The liberals' ascendancy in 1905 brought a series of drastic limitations to the Roman Catholic Church's privileges.

The state admitted representative of other religions into the country, established a system of public education, and seized most of the church's rural properties. In addition, legislation formally abolished mandatory tithes. The 1945 constitution firmly established freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Beginning in the 1960s, the country's Catholic bishops became increasingly active in supporting social change. Church leaders organized literacy campaigns among the Indians, distributed the institution's remaining lands, assisted peasants in acquiring land titles, and help communities form cooperatives.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the bishops espoused a centrist position on social and political issues. The episcopate contended that the unjust organization of Ecuadorian society caused many to live in misery.

In 1986, approximately 94% of Ecuadorians were Roman Catholic, most either did not practice their religion or pursued a syncretistic version.

Every year the Catholic people leave from the cities of Loja and Quito in pilgrimages to towns known as El Cisne, and El Quinche, to worship the Virgin Mary. People walk all night long to pay the virgin for any favor they have received from her throughout the year. There are also festivities celebrating the saints.

Some groups, particularly indigenous people who live in the mountains, follow a syncretic form of Catholicism that combines indigenous beliefs with orthodox Catholic doctrine. Saints are often venerated in ways similar to indigenous beliefs with orthodox Catholic doctrine. Saints are often venerated in ways similar to indigenous deities. In the Amazonian jungle region, Catholic practices are combined with elements of shamanism.

Despite the state's long relationship with the Catholic Church, which was a pillar of colonial and republican society, Ecuador enshrines freedom of religion in its constitution. The state works to ensure religious tolerance in policy and in practice.

The Gospel Missionary Union estimates that there are one million Protestants in the country. While Protestant conversions traditionally have been among the lower classes, there are growing numbers of professionals converting to Protestantism. Southern Baptists, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Jehovah's Witnesses, Presbyterians, and Pentecostals have successfully found converts in different regions, particularly among indigenous people who practice syncretic religions, as well as in groups marginalized by society. Other popular evangelical groups include the Assembly of God in urban areas and the Church of the Word of God, which is growing rapidly in indigenous areas.

Catholicism in Ecuador maintains a hierarchy of places of worship, from cathedrals to local chapels. There are also shrines that house figures of particular importance to the country; significant examples include the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Quinche and the seventeenth-century Sanctuary of Guapulo in Quito.

Ecuadorian Catholics maintain devotional practices similar to those of Catholics around the world. To this end, they have a network of holy patrons. The country as a whole, as well as each region and each town, has its patron; this is either a saint, a particular apparition of the Virgin Mary, or a figure of Jesus.

Standard holidays of international Catholicism are celebrated.