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rfmcdonaldThis news article from Inter Press Service ("Churches Going On Sale," by Clive Freeman) caught my attention.
Freeman goes on to cite several examples of churches in some traditionally Protestant or Catholic districts losing their congregations altogether as new immigrant populations practicing religions traditionally not present in Germany--Islam, say, or Orthodox Christianity--move in. In some cases, churches are sold outright to other denominations. Germany's churches are bound to lose influence, as Freeman writes. "In 1990 the nation's two most powerful church organisations boasted 28 million members; today it is around 21 million, with the Catholic Church losing over two million of its flock and the Protestant Church more than double that figure since reunification (October 1990)." Without this funding and without this membership, these denominations are going to be hard-pressed to maintain their current profile. If they're lucky, some of the churches can be made over into restaurants, private homes, or children's playgrounds. If not, their lands can make for useful real estate.
Germany's not alone. In the Canadian province of Québec, very sharp declines in religious practice since the 1960s have led to the collapse of many parishes, to some extent in steadily depopulating hinterlands but also in the Archdiocese of Montréal.
In the meantime, even in the middle of downtown Toronto, there are churches in the middle of the downtown that have been left in ruins, like Christ Church - St. James (1, 2). Maybe the land will be used for condo towers.
Why all this decrepitude? Part of it is a result of demographic changes, as the densely populated and multireligious rural areas that once supported multiple churches empty out. In that respect, it's not so different from the consolidation of one-room schoolhouses, such as happened on Prince Edward Island in my parents' generation. That may be a secondary factor, however: In a long article published this past December in The Globe and Mail ("Churches come tumbling down"), Michael Valpy provides a persuasive picture of a Canadian society that seems to be losing interest in religion, with even immigration doing little to sustain the strength of religion given the trend of the second generation of immigrant stock to adopt the patterns of religious practice of the wider society. (That's in the case of denominations like Roman Catholicism that are sustained by immigrants. For Protestant churches, the situation is far more grim. I'm United Church, I know.)
For the majority of Canadians as, it seems, for the majority of Germans, mainstream religion might be in the process of morphing from active faith to a sort of background element, a marker of group identity and a cultural reference point. Minority religions, particularly those of immigrant background removed from the local trends towards secularization, will diverge from this pattern, but for how long? At any rate, maybe, just maybe, many of the larger and more significant established church (and synagogue) buildings might manage survive in this context even without a particularly large active membership. Others, well.
From massive metropolitan cathedrals to village chapels, some 35,000 Protestant and Catholic church spires rise above German towns. These buildings cover some seven billion square metres. But while the continent remains rooted in Christianity, devotion is ebbing and church attendance is in decline.
Houses of worship have fallen victim to a deepening financial crisis within Germany's two most powerful religious denominations, with studies suggesting that as many as 30 to 40 percent of the nation's churches will have to close in the coming years.
[. . .]
What is new is not that less and less people attend church services -- that has been evident for decades now -- but that more and more parishioners are contracting out of church membership to avoid paying church tax. Since the early 19th century, Germany's Catholic and Protestant churches have enjoyed a constitutional right to levy taxes -- a privilege that helped many churches become wealthy organisations.
But now, with tax revenues dipping dramatically, churches are hard pressed to finance their many schools, kindergartens, missions and social programmes home and abroad. Dramatic demographic changes in the past 30 years, in cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, have also impacted on church life.
Freeman goes on to cite several examples of churches in some traditionally Protestant or Catholic districts losing their congregations altogether as new immigrant populations practicing religions traditionally not present in Germany--Islam, say, or Orthodox Christianity--move in. In some cases, churches are sold outright to other denominations. Germany's churches are bound to lose influence, as Freeman writes. "In 1990 the nation's two most powerful church organisations boasted 28 million members; today it is around 21 million, with the Catholic Church losing over two million of its flock and the Protestant Church more than double that figure since reunification (October 1990)." Without this funding and without this membership, these denominations are going to be hard-pressed to maintain their current profile. If they're lucky, some of the churches can be made over into restaurants, private homes, or children's playgrounds. If not, their lands can make for useful real estate.
Germany's not alone. In the Canadian province of Québec, very sharp declines in religious practice since the 1960s have led to the collapse of many parishes, to some extent in steadily depopulating hinterlands but also in the Archdiocese of Montréal.
Twenty five years ago, there were 256 parishes in the archdiocese, 39 of them operating in English. Today, there are 235 parishes - 29 of them for English-speaking congregations.
Similarly, the number of priests in the diocese has dropped during the past 25 years from 667 to about 450 who are still active. In 1983, 75 priests ministered to English-speaking congregations; today, there are about 50. Significantly, the number of church deacons, men who perform some priestly duties, has increased from 18 in 1983 to 39 today.
As a result, many smaller parishes have merged and the diocese is trying to close or sell redundant church buildings.
Most, like St. Jean Baptiste and Notre Dame de la Défense, are in the city's Plateau Mont Royal district - or, like French-speaking parishes in mainly English-speaking areas, they serve a small community.
The common denominator: They have huge maintenance bills and can no longer count on their congregations for support.
In the meantime, even in the middle of downtown Toronto, there are churches in the middle of the downtown that have been left in ruins, like Christ Church - St. James (1, 2). Maybe the land will be used for condo towers.
Why all this decrepitude? Part of it is a result of demographic changes, as the densely populated and multireligious rural areas that once supported multiple churches empty out. In that respect, it's not so different from the consolidation of one-room schoolhouses, such as happened on Prince Edward Island in my parents' generation. That may be a secondary factor, however: In a long article published this past December in The Globe and Mail ("Churches come tumbling down"), Michael Valpy provides a persuasive picture of a Canadian society that seems to be losing interest in religion, with even immigration doing little to sustain the strength of religion given the trend of the second generation of immigrant stock to adopt the patterns of religious practice of the wider society. (That's in the case of denominations like Roman Catholicism that are sustained by immigrants. For Protestant churches, the situation is far more grim. I'm United Church, I know.)
Scholars find significant [. . .] the marked decline in occasional attendance, which means the churches are losing prospective membership recruits.
They cite the sharp declines in baptisms, church marriages and young people's confirmations or professions of faith marking full membership (the Anglicans, some years ago, abandoned confirmation instruction as a prerequisite to taking part in the Eucharist) and the disappearance of once well-known biblical references from our everyday speech.
Prof. Macdonald and others, looking beyond the 40-year steep decline in regular worship attendance, cite the unprecedented growth in the census of those who identify themselves as having "no religion" — from 1 per cent in 1961 to 4 per cent a decade later, to 16 per cent in 2001 (and a whopping 35 per cent in B.C.) — as well as those self-identified as unaffiliated Christian, or "Christian not included elsewhere": now 700,000 Canadians, double the number in 1991.
Denominational belonging is one of the final things to go in someone's attachment to institutional faith, Prof. Macdonald noted in an interview. "People's religious identity lasts a long time."
For the majority of Canadians as, it seems, for the majority of Germans, mainstream religion might be in the process of morphing from active faith to a sort of background element, a marker of group identity and a cultural reference point. Minority religions, particularly those of immigrant background removed from the local trends towards secularization, will diverge from this pattern, but for how long? At any rate, maybe, just maybe, many of the larger and more significant established church (and synagogue) buildings might manage survive in this context even without a particularly large active membership. Others, well.
