In and around Darmstadt the two Protestant deaneries in town and country merge. The Catholic deaneries in the diocese of Mainz are even to be completely dissolved.
The Protestant and Catholic Christians in Darmstadt are also facing far-reaching changes: In view of the dwindling number of believers and lower church tax revenues, the operational structures will be reorganized in the next few years.
The Protestant deaneries in Darmstadt city and state will merge as early as January 1, 2022. In February the synods of the two deaneries decided to renovate a building in Darmstadt’s Kapellplatzviertel over the next few months and convert it into the future administrative headquarters of the larger deanery. The merger is being prepared by a steering group made up of members from both deans and working groups. Five years ago, impulses for the planned merger were developed during a “future workshop”.
According to city dean Ulrike Schmidt-Hesse, the merged dean’s office Darmstadt Stadt und Land with around 86,000 members will be the second largest dean’s office of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau after the city dean’s office in Frankfurt and Offenbach. The name of the merged deanery will be decided on June 25 at a joint meeting of the two deanery synods.
The Catholic parishes in and around Darmstadt are also fighting for new administrative structures. In the course of the “Pastoral Way”, as the restructuring process is called, initiated by Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz, the dean’s offices are no longer to exist in their current form. The diocese of Mainz nevertheless assumes “that there will continue to be a level between the new parishes and the diocese”.
According to information from the Dean’s Office, Bernd Lülsdorf, there has been an intensive exchange in the church committees for several months in the Catholic Dean’s Office in Darmstadt. There is also discussion in several thematic groups about reducing the current 18 parishes to three or even just two parishes. Six different models are available.
The diocese asked the deaneries to formulate their concepts by the end of November. This includes content-related pastoral goals and priorities, but also structural decisions, such as the layout of the new parishes or suggestions for possible leadership models.
According to Deanery Lülsdorf, “it will certainly be impossible to come to a decision that will satisfy everyone equally”. The starting points and the interests of the individual communities in and around Darmstadt are too different. Therefore it will be “exciting” how all parishes and institutions manage to “organize their discussions in such a way that one does not get too stuck on a solution”. “After all, we don’t want to produce winners and losers in the ‘Pastoral Way’, but rather to shape the future of cooperation,” says Lülsdorf.
On June 15, there will be a status talk with the cathedral capitular Hans-Jürgen Eberhardt and Ursula Stroth, the consultant in the coordination office for the “Pastoral Way” at the Episcopal Ordinariate in Mainz. On Saturday, June 26th, it is planned to take a Dean’s Day to decide on the future structures and the results available up to then on a draft concept.
The number of members is falling, the churches have to save. In Frankfurt, too, there are more and more people leaving the church. At the same time, an initiative there is fighting against the demolition of a church building.
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