Millions of German citizens turned away from the church this year

According to the German news agency DPA, so many German citizens have left the church this year, which is unprecedented in the past. According to this news agency, it is certain that last year’s record will be broken.

In the year 2021, about 360,000 Catholics and other Christians turned their backs on the Church, and this year this number may go even higher. The final data in this regard will be published at the beginning of next year.

According to the DPA, the number of people who leave the church is higher in big cities than in towns and villages, and the situation is similar in almost all big cities in Germany. Bavaria is considered to be a more religious state than other German provincial states. According to a spokesman for the district administrative council of Munich, the capital city of this state, about 26,000 people had left the church there by December 15, 2022. This number is four thousand more than last year.

Similarly, a spokesman for the civil courts in Berlin, the German capital, said that during the first nine months of this year, about 18,000 people left the church. This number is more than 4 thousand compared to 2021.

Similar figures have been reported from other major cities in Germany. This is the reason why a new record may be set for the number of people leaving the church this year.

According to a recent survey by the news agency NA, one in four members in Germany is considering leaving the church. Among those wanting to leave the church, 81 percent said scandals had caused them to lose confidence in religious institutions.

“The reasons for this are abuse scandals and church reluctance to reform,” says Stefan Woppel, an expert at the Foundation for Social Harmony in Germany.

For the past few years, sexual abuses in the Catholic Church have been exposed in different countries of the world and after the complaints of the victims, reports are also being published by the church itself. On the eighth of last month, the Church of France also released a report, according to which three hundred and three thousand children have been subjected to sexual abuse in the last 70 years.

However, 92 percent of those who wanted to leave the church agreed with the statement that anyone can be or remain a Christian without being a member of the church.