The German churches are under pressure

Jakarta –

Many magnificent church buildings such as the Kln Cathedral, the Frauenkirche Church in Dresden, or the Maria Laach monastery in the Eiffel district – are tourist destinations and major tourist attractions in Germany.

Traditionally, Germany is a country with a large Christian population. However, that has changed dramatically in recent years. Not even half of Germans are now registered as Catholic or Protestant.

Only if we add followers of the Orthodox Church and the so-called Freikirchen or Free Church, whose followers are still mostly Protestants, can more than 50 percent of Germany’s 84 million population are known as Christians, including Catholics. and Protestants.

In 1990, when the number of Christians in West and East Germany was recorded for the first time, Christians still made up more than 70 percent of the total population.

At that time, 35.8 percent of Germany’s nearly 80 million people were Catholic and 36.9 percent were Protestant. Overall the figure is 72.7 percent.

Ten years later, in 2001, the number still reached 64 percent. A decade later, in 2011, the figure dropped for the first time below 60 percent: of 80.3 million people in Germany, only 59.9 percent still belonged to one of the main churches.

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Leave the church because of the sexual assault scandal

At the end of 2023, nearly 20.35 million Germans were still registered as members of the Catholic Church and about 18.56 million were members of the Protestant Church.

This decline in numbers is not only caused by the hundreds of thousands of people who are already planning to leave the church, some of them may also be caused by the sexual violence scandal which happened in the two great churches.

In addition, both churches, Catholic and Protestant, record far more deaths of members than new members each year.

The German Orthodox Bishops’ Conference, founded in 2010, says there are four million Orthodox Christians in Germany. Meanwhile, groups classified as the Free Christian Church and other Christian communities have around 800,000 members.

The state collects taxes for the church

A special feature of church funding in the German legal system is that the state can collect money for Catholic and Protestant churches, commonly known as ‘church tax’, the amount of which depends on the level of salary or income – into the person. The money collected by the state will then be distributed to the Catholic and Protestant Churches. That is also why the country has stable statistics about membership in the two megachurches.

At the same time, for members of Orthodox Christians, members of the Freikirche or Muslims and Jews in Germany, there are no state records because they do not have to pay church taxes.

This development has had various effects. The state and the big churches have more of a relationship in Germany than in most other countries around the world. This relationship has been going on for a long time.

The foundations of the German church funding system can be traced back to the Weimar Constitution of 1919. The state at that time also took into account the financial demands of churches after a wave of privatization in the early 19th century, when land ​​​and buildings owned by the church are greatly nationalized.

Germany heading for a non-Christian society?

There has been discussion several times about changing the church tax rules, but it is not easy to do. Because that means that the federal government and state governments have to reach new agreements with the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church.

Such efforts always fail because there is no agreement between the federal and state governments.

There have been other developments in many places in Germany for some time. Churches are increasingly short of congregations so they get less church taxes and have to save money. Scientists and social experts have discussed whether Germany is heading towards the development of a post-Christian society.

More than 500 church buildings and chapels in Germany are now abandoned or converted as church attendance continues to decline. The church buildings were then demolished or converted into apartments, restaurants or other activity spaces.

(ap/hp)

(eng/ita)