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Denmark is often described as one of Europe’s most secular countries. Yet every spring, thousands of teenagers still dress up and walk into church for confirmation, a Christian rite that has become one of the country’s defining coming-of-age rituals.
According to the Church of Denmark, 64.2% of the confirmation-age cohort were confirmed in 2025, down from around 70% a decade earlier.
Now, a growing number of young Danes are looking for ways to mark the same transition without confirming a Christian faith.
Nora Pihl was 15 when she chose not to be confirmed by the church. But she still wanted to take part in a ritual that would mark the same transition.
“I never really believed in God and that sort of thing,” she said. “At first it was for the presents and the party, to be completely honest. But when I started doing the preparation, it was actually really nice.”
She opted for a humanist confirmation – a secular alternative run by the Danish Humanist Society.
According to the organisation, the programme includes classes where young people discuss ethics, identity, relationships and what it means to become an adult, followed by a ceremony marking the transition.
“You learn a lot about how to become a better person and how to behave towards others,” Pihl said.
Just like a conventional confirmation ceremony, which follows weeks of classes, Pihl had her secular ceremony in the auditorium of Copenhagen’s Royal Library.
The participants received a diploma marking the completion of their journey, with their families in attendance.
Her experience reflects a wider Danish reality. In a historically homogeneous society, confirmation is not only about belief. It is also about belonging and the social rituals around teenage life.
“One of the explanations for why the confirmation rate remains at a relatively high level is probably that confirmation has great social significance and is an event that the confirmed often has in common with their classmates,” according to the Church of Denmark’s education and knowledge centre.
“We didn’t think it was essential for her to do a ritual. But… pretty much everyone does something or gets something. So it would be unnatural not to,” according to Martin Pihl, Nora’s father. “I can see what it has done for her, I really believe it’s a great thing.”
Although Nora chose to forgo traditional religious confirmation, she still wore a white dress, the customary attire for the rite of passage.
The social weight of confirmation is also visible in how expensive the celebrations have become.
“I think more people have more money,” Martin Pihl said, adding that some have started including “ridiculous things” such as “kids getting picked up in limousines and flown in helicopters”.
In 2025, a survey by bank Nordea estimated that Danish parents spent an average of 39,000 DKK (around €5,164) on a confirmation party for their teenager.
The alternatives are still limited and Christian confirmation dominates. But beyond humanist confirmation, some young Danes are turning to other ways of marking the same transition, including a course focused on adulthood, identity, relationships, sex and consent.
Even as many Danes describe religion as a cultural or private matter rather than a central part of everyday life, the Evangelical Lutheran Church remains closely tied to Denmark’s national identity and major life events, from baptism and confirmation to weddings and funerals.
As of 2026, around seven in ten people in Denmark are still members of the national church.
Video editor • Roselyne Min