Christianity in Jamaica

The mission to the Taíno failed: within a few generations the island’s first people had been destroyed by violence, forced labour and disease. Spanish Jamaica remained a small Catholic colony of farmers, ranchers and enslaved Africans until 1655, when an English force sent by Oliver Cromwell captured the island. The English expelled the Spanish, burned their churches and banned Catholic worship, which would not return openly for well over a century.

The established church, 1655–1870

Under English rule the Church of England became the official, state-funded church. From 1664 a church stood on the site of the ruined Spanish chapel in Spanish Town; rebuilt in 1714 after a hurricane, it is today the Cathedral of St Jago de la Vega, often described as the oldest Anglican cathedral site outside England. Each parish was given a parish church and a rector paid from public funds, and the church’s calendar, marriages and burials became the framework of colonial life. St Peter’s Church at Port Royal, rebuilt in 1726 after the earthquake of 1692, still holds a silver communion set said to have been given by the privateer Sir Henry Morgan. The Parish Church of St James in Montego Bay, consecrated in 1782, is one of the finest Georgian buildings in the Caribbean.

For most of its first two centuries the established church ministered to the planter class and made little effort to reach the enslaved majority, whom many planters feared would be made restless by religion. Other Protestants were present early, including Quakers, who built meeting houses at Port Royal in the later 1600s, and Jews worshipped openly. The Diocese of Jamaica was created in 1824, covering Belize and the Bahamas as well. The Church of England was finally disestablished in 1870, ending its special legal and financial status.

Missionaries and the enslaved, 1754–1838

The faith of most Jamaicans today was carried to them not by the established church but by missionaries and by Black preachers. The Moravians came first, invited in 1754 by two English planters, and were the first to set out seriously to teach Christianity to the enslaved. In 1783 George Liele, a formerly enslaved preacher from Georgia, began Baptist worship in Kingston; by 1791 his church had more than 450 enslaved members and by 1806 about 3,000. The Methodist leader Dr Thomas Coke landed at Port Royal in 1789, and the church in Kingston named after him is still regarded as the mother church of Jamaican Methodism. Scottish Presbyterians and, from 1814, the Baptist Missionary Society of Britain followed.

Planters often met the missionaries with suspicion and violence, and chapels were burned. But in the chapels the enslaved found leaders, literacy and a language of deliverance. In December 1831 Sam Sharpe, a Baptist deacon in St James, led a general strike that grew into the Christmas Rebellion, the largest uprising in the history of the British Caribbean. It was crushed and Sharpe was hanged in 1832, but the revolt and the missionaries who testified about it in Britain, among them the Baptists William Knibb and Thomas Burchell, helped push Parliament to abolish slavery. Emancipation came in 1834, with full freedom on 1 August 1838. Sharpe was named a National Hero of Jamaica.

Free villages

Freedom raised a practical question that still matters to Jamaica Homes readers: where would the formerly enslaved live? Many planters refused to sell land to them, so missionary churches stepped in, buying estates through agents in London and dividing them into lots for their members. The result was the free villages, many of them laid out around a church and a school.

Free village	Parish	Founded by or linked to
Sligoville	St Catherine	Rev. James Phillippo’s Baptist congregation; often called the first free village
Sturge Town	St Ann	Baptist congregations with the Quaker abolitionist Joseph Sturge (1838)
Kettering	Trelawny	Named after William Knibb’s birthplace in England
Granville	Trelawny	Arranged through William Knibb’s chapel
Clarksonville	St Ann	Rev. John Clark’s Baptist chapel; named after Thomas Clarkson
Goodwill	St James	Rev. George Blyth of the Scottish Missionary Society
Maidstone	Manchester	Moravian missionaries

Source: research on Jamaica’s free villages, including the Jamaica Information Service. See also our Free Villages guide.

The free villages gave thousands of families their first title to land and created the pattern of small hillside freeholds, district churches and church schools that still defines much of rural Jamaica.

The Catholic return

Catholicism survived underground after 1655 and returned slowly. In 1791 an Irish Franciscan was sent to serve the island’s small Catholic population. On 10 January 1837 Pope Gregory XVI made Jamaica an Apostolic Vicariate, placing it in the care of the English Jesuits; American Jesuits took over later in the century. Spanish Jesuits who had been expelled from New Granada founded St George’s College in Kingston in 1850, one of the island’s oldest high schools. The Diocese of Kingston was created in 1956, and in 1967 Kingston became an archdiocese with a new diocese at Montego Bay. Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kingston, built between 1908 and 1911 after the 1907 earthquake destroyed the old cathedral, has an 85-foot copper dome unmatched in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Revival and rebellion, 1860–1865

In September 1860 a religious awakening broke out among the Moravians of St Elizabeth and swept across the island over the next two years. Baptists alone baptised or restored more than 6,000 people; Presbyterian membership grew by almost a quarter; Methodist circuits from Montego Bay to Kingston added hundreds. Out of the Great Revival also came something distinctly Jamaican: Revival Zion and Pukumina, which blended Christian worship with African traditions of spirit possession, drumming and healing and remain part of Jamaican religious life.

Five years later the church was again at the centre of resistance. Paul Bogle, appointed a deacon of the Baptist chapel at Stony Gut, St Thomas, in 1864 with the help of the politician George William Gordon, led a march on the Morant Bay courthouse on 11 October 1865 over poverty, land and justice. The rebellion was suppressed with great brutality; Bogle was hanged on 24 October and Gordon was executed too. Both were named National Heroes in 1969.

The new churches, 1870–1962

After disestablishment, the religious landscape opened up. Seventh-day Adventist literature reached Jamaica in 1891 and the first missionaries arrived in 1893; the Jamaica Conference was recognised by the world church in 1903, and the training school founded in 1906 moved to Mandeville in 1919, where it grew into Northern Caribbean University. In the early twentieth century holiness and Pentecostal churches from the United States, especially the various Churches of God, began planting congregations whose spirited worship echoed the Revival tradition. Their growth was slow at first: in 1960 the census still counted only 14,739 Pentecostals.

The 1907 Kingston earthquake destroyed many of the capital’s churches, including the Catholic cathedral and the Kingston Parish Church, which were rebuilt in the years that followed. In 1941 the main Protestant churches formed the Jamaica Council of Churches; the Catholic Church later joined, making it the island’s principal ecumenical body.

Since independence

The 1962 Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, and churches remained central to education, welfare and public life. In 1965 Presbyterians and Congregationalists united to form what is now the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, joined by the Disciples of Christ in 1992. Pope John Paul II visited Jamaica from 9 to 11 August 1993, celebrating Mass at the National Stadium.

The most important change, though, has been the shift in where Jamaicans worship. By the 2011 census the Church of God family, Pentecostals and Adventists together accounted for almost half the population, while the historic churches, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Moravian, United, Catholic and Brethren, had fallen to 454,171 people from 508,956 a decade earlier. More than one Jamaican in five reported no religion. When Hurricane Melissa struck in October 2025, it damaged or destroyed hundreds of churches in the west, and congregations became shelters and relief centres even as they faced the cost of rebuilding. Our analysis, Jamaica, a Nation of Churches, Is Quietly Changing Its Faith, examines these trends.

Denominations

Every Christian group counted in the 2011 census, with the year it took root in Jamaica. Follow the links for our full guide to each denomination.

Denomination	In Jamaica since	2011 census	Share	Change since 2001
Seventh-day Adventist	1893	322,228	12.01%	▲ 14.5%
Pentecostal	early 20th century	295,195	11.00%	▲ 19.3%
Other Church of God	early 20th century	246,838	9.20%	▲ 14.4%
New Testament Church of God	early 20th century	192,086	7.16%	▲ 17.2%
Baptist	1783	180,640	6.73%	▼ 4.3%
Church of God in Jamaica	early 20th century	129,544	4.83%	▲ 4.3%
Church of God of Prophecy	early 20th century	121,400	4.52%	▲ 7.2%
Anglican	1655	74,891	2.79%	▼ 20.0%
Roman Catholic	1509; restored 1837	57,946	2.16%	▼ 13.8%
United Church	united 1965	55,360	2.06%	▼ 13.7%
Jehovah’s Witnesses	1897	50,849	1.90%	▲ 15.0%
Methodist	1789	43,336	1.62%	▼ 13.4%
Revivalist	1860s	36,296	1.35%	new category
Brethren	19th century	23,647	0.88%	▼ 2.4%
Moravian	1754	18,351	0.68%	▼ 12.5%
Latter-day Saints, Orthodox and others	various	in Other	–	–

Source: STATIN, Population and Housing Census 2011. Full figures, church membership rolls and independent estimates are on Jamaica Religion Stats. Rastafari, which grew from Jamaican Christianity and Ethiopianism, has its own page: Rastafari in Jamaica.

Notable churches

Jamaica’s churches are among its most important historic buildings, and many are listed by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. A selection, with links to their entries in the Jamaica Homes glossary:

Church	Place	Denomination	Notes
St Jago de la Vega Cathedral	Spanish Town	Anglican	Site of the 1525 Spanish Church of the Red Cross; present building 1714
Holy Trinity Cathedral	Kingston	Roman Catholic	Built 1908–11 after the 1907 earthquake; 85-foot copper dome
Kingston Parish Church	Kingston	Anglican	Parish church of the capital, rebuilt after the 1907 earthquake
St Peter’s Church	Port Royal	Anglican	Rebuilt 1726 after the 1692 earthquake; Henry Morgan communion silver
St James Parish Church	Montego Bay	Anglican	Consecrated 1782; Georgian; restored after the 1957 earthquake
Coke Methodist Church	Kingston	Methodist	Named after Thomas Coke; mother church of Jamaican Methodism
East Queen Street Baptist Church	Kingston	Baptist	One of the capital’s historic Baptist congregations
Phillippo Baptist Church	Spanish Town	Baptist	Associated with Rev. James Phillippo, founder of free villages
Burchell Memorial Church	Montego Bay	Baptist	Named after the missionary Thomas Burchell
Kettering Baptist Church	Trelawny	Baptist	In a free village named after William Knibb’s birthplace
Scots Kirk	Kingston	United Church (Presbyterian)	The Scottish Presbyterian church in the capital

Many more are described in our guide to churches and cemetery sites.

Church and society

Schools and colleges

Churches founded a large share of Jamaica’s schools, and church-owned public schools still receive government funding while keeping their religious character; publicly funded church schools must admit students of all faiths. Among the best known institutions are St George’s College (Jesuit, 1850), Northern Caribbean University (Seventh-day Adventist, Mandeville) and the United Theological College of the West Indies at Mona, which trains ministers for several Protestant churches.

Land and property

Churches are among Jamaica’s significant landowners, holding sites for worship, schools, cemeteries and glebe land, some of it acquired in the nineteenth century. The free villages turned church land into family land for thousands, and questions of church title, trusteeship, sale and redevelopment remain live today. Jamaica Homes covers these stories under church land and church property.

Music and worship

Jamaican worship has given the world the sound of the Revival drum, the harmonies of Sunday choirs and a gospel music industry of its own, and it fed directly into ska, reggae and the songs of the Rastafari. Nine nights, wakes and tarrying services blend Christian and African traditions in ways found nowhere else.

Public life

Jamaica’s public holidays include Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Prayers open Parliament and many public events, and church leaders are regularly heard on national questions from crime to the Constitution.

Timeline

Year	Event
1494	A priest with Columbus celebrates Mass off the Jamaican coast
1509	Spanish settle at Sevilla la Nueva; Dominican friars arrive
1515	Pope Leo X makes Jamaica an abbacy
1525	Church of the Red Cross built at Villa de la Vega (Spanish Town)
1655	English capture Jamaica; Catholic worship banned; Church of England established
1714	Present Spanish Town church, now St Jago de la Vega Cathedral, rebuilt
1726	St Peter’s, Port Royal, rebuilt after the 1692 earthquake
1754	Moravian missionaries arrive
1782	St James Parish Church, Montego Bay, consecrated
1783	George Liele begins Baptist worship in Kingston
1789	Thomas Coke brings Methodism to Jamaica
1791	Irish Franciscan sent to serve Catholics
1824	Anglican Diocese of Jamaica created
1831–32	Sam Sharpe’s Christmas Rebellion
1834–38	Emancipation; full freedom on 1 August 1838
1835–40s	Churches found free villages, including Sligoville and Sturge Town
1837	Jamaica made an Apostolic Vicariate; Catholic hierarchy restored
1850	Jesuits found St George’s College
1860–61	The Great Revival
1865	Morant Bay Rebellion led by Baptist deacon Paul Bogle
1870	Church of England disestablished
1893	First Seventh-day Adventist missionaries arrive
1907	Kingston earthquake destroys many churches
1911	Holy Trinity Cathedral completed in Kingston
1941	Jamaica Council of Churches founded
1956	Catholic Diocese of Kingston created; archdiocese from 1967
1962	Independence; Constitution guarantees freedom of religion
1965	United Church formed by Presbyterians and Congregationalists
1969	Paul Bogle named a National Hero
1993	Pope John Paul II visits, 9–11 August
2011	Census: Christians 68.9%; Adventists the largest denomination
2025	Hurricane Melissa damages or destroys hundreds of churches

Updates to this page

Date	Change
12 October 2026	Denomination guides added and linked.
12 October 2026	Page created.

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Sources: Statistical Institute of Jamaica, Population and Housing Census 2011; Pew Research Center (2025); Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston, history; The Gleaner, “Cathedrals of Jamaica: pillars of hope” (29 June 2025) and Methodist 230th anniversary report (20 January 2019); Revival Library, “Revival in Jamaica, 1860”; Jamaica Information Service, Sligoville; research on Jamaica’s free villages; United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands; World Council of Churches; Vatican, Apostolic Journey of John Paul II to Jamaica (1993); Wikipedia, Christianity in Jamaica, Protestantism in Jamaica and Paul Bogle; Jamaica Homes, Jamaica Religion Stats.