Municipalities - Number of people leaving the church remains high
The number of people leaving the church in North Rhine-Westphalia remained high in 2023. As a random survey of local courts conducted by the German Press Agency suggests, the trend is slightly below the record level of 2022. However, thousands also turned their backs on the church in the year now coming to an end.
In the state capital Düsseldorf, for example, 5172 Catholics and 3469 Protestants left the church by December 19 this year, compared to 6211 Catholics and 3338 Protestants in 2022 as a whole. In Cologne, the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia with just over one million inhabitants, there were 14,430 people leaving the church in the period from January 2023 up to and including November, compared to 20,331 in 2022 as a whole. The Aachen district court recorded 5747 people leaving the church up to 19 December. The figure for 2022 was 5211.
In Bielefeld, 3974 people had left the church by 20 December 2023, compared to 3831 in 2022. In Münster, 5379 people had left the church by the end of November this year, including 3649 Catholics, compared to 6869 in 2022 as a whole, including 5085 Catholics. In Oberhausen in the Ruhr region, 1733 people had left the church by the end of September this year, compared to 2409 for the whole of 2022. In Duisburg, 2261 people had left the church by the end of November this year. In 2022 as a whole, 2425 Duisburg residents had left the church.
The German Bishops' Conference (DBK) had reported a spectacular negative record for 2022: Nationwide, 522,821 Catholics turned their backs on their church. Protestants reported a total of 380,000 people leaving the church nationwide in 2022. There was also a record high of 223,509 church exits in NRW in 2022.
Commenting on the provisional figures for the current year, religious educator Ulrich Riegel said: "On the one hand, nothing significant has changed that should significantly break the trend of people leaving the church. On the other hand, however, nothing significant has happened either - such as a new report concerning a prominent bishop - that should significantly drive the wave upwards."
It is difficult to say, for example, whether the discussion surrounding the resignation of Annette Kurschus, Chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and President of the Westphalian Regional Church, will be reflected in the figures. "I myself am expecting high figures once again," emphasized Riegel. "It doesn't really matter whether a record comes out of it."
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Source: www.stern.de
