The Lutheran World Federation has recently released statistics of Lutheran membership in 2009. You will find them at:
http://www.lutheranworld.org/LWF_Documents/LWF-Statistics-2009.pdf
The global Lutheran community numbered 73,758,000 in 2009, compared with 71,974,000 in 2008, an increase of 2.5 per cent.
Of this total a fraction over one half are to be found in Europe, and (more surprising, perhaps) one quarter in Africa.
The number of Lutherans in the UK in 2009 was 178,545, a rise of almost one third on the 2008 figure of 134,845.
This continues a pattern of growth among UK Lutherans in recent years, arising from the opening of borders within the European Union, as well as the arrival of many Africans, particularly from East Africa and the Horn.
Most of the Lutherans (174,300) belong to the Lutheran Council of Britain, with only small numbers in membership of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain (2,745) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England (1,500).
The Lutheran Council was established in 1948 as an umbrella body for the culturally and linguistically diverse Lutheran community in Britain.
It represents Amharic, Chinese, Danish, English, Eritrean, Estonian, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Latvian, Norwegian, Oromo, Polish, Swahili and Swedish traditions. However, most British Lutherans still come from Nordic countries.
