COMMUNITY & RELOCATION INFORMATION

Religion

Missoula is home to a wide variety of religious faiths, including virtually every Christian denomination as well as Jews, Buddhists, Bahai and Nondenominational. The Christian tradition was formally brought to western Montana by Father Pierre Jean DeSmet and his fellow Jesuit missionaries who opened St. Mary’s Mission in the Bitterroot Valley in 1841. Father DeSmet came in response to a request for “black robes” by various Indian tribes of present-day Montana.

Today, there are over 75 Christian churches in the Missoula area. Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, join Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians among the many church goers here.