Churches in Germany selling off buildings en masse

“[W]hen church officials explain that there’s little point in heating a church that has no thermal insulation and high-arched ceilings every Sunday for just 10 churchgoers, these critics of closing churches are also left at a loss for what to say.”

The Last Supper: Germany’s Great Church Sell-Off

Discussion

Most Germans I’ve run into in Germany that actually claim one of the two state religions (Catholicism and Lutheranism [protestant] ) are really only “culturally” religious — kind of a family identity. Like much of western Europe, I would say the real main religion in Germany is either apathy or atheism. The article mentioned one town with 5% church attenders. That’s probably not far away from the national average, at least in many of the areas that are not very strongly Catholic.

Sadly, it’s not surprising that many of the non-architecturally significant church buildings are coming down. If you don’t believe, you don’t need a place to meet together to worship.

Dave Barnhart