Society - 131 Catholic churches closed in five years
Nationwide, 131 Catholic churches have been closed in the past five years. 126 of these have also been deconsecrated, according to the German Bishops' Conference (DBK). The buildings are then officially deconsecrated.
At the end of the year, a church in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising will be profaned for the first time in recent times: on December 30, the Ebenhausen church of St. Benedict in Schäftlarn will be profaned - with a mass followed by a candlelight procession.
The reason is the cost. "The roof, which contains asbestos, and the damp building fabric would require repairs that are financially unaffordable less than 60 years after its consecration," writes the archdiocese. "The profanation of St. Benedict's has been decided and is imminent." According to a spokesperson for the diocese, it is still unclear what will happen to the building after it is deconsecrated.
This is an unusual step for the still comparatively wealthy Munich archdiocese. St. Benedict's is reportedly the first church in recent times to be profaned without a replacement building.
In Munich, the Augustinian Church was deconsecrated at the beginning of the 19th century, and the Carmelite Church and the Allerheiligenhof Church in the Munich Residence have not been used as churches since the end of the war due to massive war damage.
According to a survey conducted by the German Press Agency among the Catholic dioceses in Bavaria, some churches were also closed in the current year: In the diocese of Würzburg, it was two smaller places of worship in Rüdenhausen and Sommerhausen. In the diocese of Eichstätt, the church of St. Monika in Ingolstadt was to be profaned.
According to a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Bamberg, "not even a dozen churches have been sold or given away" in the last 10 to 15 years. "This is an extremely low number and shows that consecrated churches have only been disposed of in absolutely exceptional cases", said the spokesperson.
Only rarely has profanation taken place because the churches in question have usually been transferred to other Christian denominations, such as Orthodox churches.
Not only Catholic churches were affected by closures: According to the Protestant regional church, 13 Protestant churches have also been deconsecrated in Bavaria since 2019.
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Source: www.stern.de
