In the poll, respondents were asked to specify whether they considered themselves religious, not religious, or atheist, regardless of whether they attended houses of prayer.
The number of religious people went down from 75 percent to 69 percent over the past six months, while the number of non-religious residents grew from 19 percent to 22 percent. In 2005, 2 percent of the population said they were atheist, as compared with 1 percent in the latest survey in December.
"Lithuania is among the countries where a larger share of the population consider themselves religious and there are hardly any atheists," Inga Nausėdienė, board chairman of RAIT pollster that conducted the survey, said in a press release.
The global survey for the Win-Gallup International Religiosity and Atheism Index was carried out in 57 countries. Lithuania was above the global average of 59 percent.
Some 81 percent of residents of Lithuania's neighboring Poland considered themselves religious, as compared with 55 percent in Russia, 60 percent in the United States. The survey was not carried out in other Baltic states.
RAIT interviewed 1,025 Lithuanian residents aged 15 to 74 last year.
