The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria had to accept a massive loss of membership in 2021. The official statistics published in Munich on Wednesday recorded 36,580 people leaving the church, almost 10,000 more than in the previous year. That means an increase of more than 37 percent. The number of members fell within a year by around 100,000 to just over 2.2 million. No figures are available for the Catholic Church. These will only be announced in the summer. However, data published so far from several cities and municipalities in the Free State also indicate a sharp increase in the number of people leaving. State bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm suspects a “catch-up effect of the corona lockdown in the previous year”, in which 26,590 people had turned their backs on the state church. In 2019, this figure was almost 32,400.
A representative study by the Social Science Institute of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) on reasons for leaving the church since 2018, also published on Wednesday, indicates that only a minority had a specific reason to do so. For most, this step is preceded by a lengthy process of alienation. Bedford-Strohm said people need to experience the Christian faith as personal enrichment and as relevant to their lives. There is no patent recipe for this. “But we are in the middle of a major renovation and new construction of the church and are trying out many things.” The church leadership expressly encouraged the congregations to experiment with new forms of church life. According to the information, the spectrum ranges from the mobile bicycle cafe at the cemetery to cross-community events for parents and children “with a lot of community, food and spiritual input”. 15 projects are currently being supported, and an interest in funding has been registered for a further 80. “Wherever volunteers are taken seriously and there is scope for new things, that’s where the fish fly,” said Michael Wolf, consultant for church and community development in the state church office. Unlike before, the EKD with its member churches decided in March to publish figures on their membership development in 2021. Some of the information is based on estimates, but this does not apply to Bavaria. The Catholic Church regularly announces its consolidated exit figures for the previous year in the summer of the following year.