The Present
As has already been mentioned, only Christianity and Judaism of the major world religions were represented in Switzerland until as late as the 19th century. Since then, however, the religious landscape of Switzerland has changed considerably.
Immigration of foreign workers from practically all parts of the world has brought religious communities to Switzerland that until the middle of the last century were not represented in our country.
At the same time, the growing secularisation of private and public life put an end to religious (Christian) traditions and customs that had shaped the daily and annual course of events in Switzerland for centuries. This is most clearly apparent when it comes to Sundays and feast days being days of rest. Even in the 1970s, shops that opened on Sundays (e.g. cake shops) were a great exception, cinemas were closed, dances and sporting events were banned on major Christian feast days, and there were no newspapers on Sundays.
The current discussion about religion in Switzerland has become dominated both by a dialogue between religions and by fears which manifest themselves, for example, if Muslims want to exercise their religious freedoms and build mosques with minarets.