Modern dilemmas: what to do with those empty churches
The number of Christian believers in Germany has been falling rapidly, and this presents a problem: what to do with all those empty churches? Maybe it’s time to re-purpose them as mosques – it’s certainly happened before; just ask the Byzantines. But meanwhile, here are some other solutions:
The number of church members in Germany is falling rapidly. In 2024 alone, the two major churches lost over a million Christians due to people leaving the church or dying. Currently, more than 45% of Germans still belong to either to the Protestant Church in Germanyor the Catholic Church. Thirty years ago, that figure stood at almost 69%. This is why churches are now being deconsecrated or desacralized.
… In response to a DW inquiry, the German Bishops’ Conference informed of the closing and decommissioning of 611 Catholic churches between 2000 and 2024. The Protestant Church estimates that some 300 to 350 churches were permanently shut in the same period; more precise figures are not available.
And what happens to former houses of worship? In some cities, especially in Berlin, growing Orthodox Christian congregations have taken over church buildings. But that remains the exception. …
Some are repurposed. In Jülich, a town between Cologne and Aachen, bicycles are now sold in the former Catholic St. Rochus Church. Thomas Oellers moved his business, Toms Bike Center, into the church building. …
In Wettringen, just north of Münster, an abbey has been transformed into a “soccer church” where footballs are knocked about. In Kleve, the former Protestant Church of the Resurrection serves as a boxing arena. Former churches now house pubs, libraries and book stores. Entire cloisters have even been turned into hotel complexes. In Düsseldorf, a hotel has retained its traditional name Mutterhaus (Mother House) in a nod to its original use as a convent for nuns.
In times of housing shortages, there are more and more cases of architects converting church buildings into residential buildings. In Berlin, Rostock, Trier, Cologne and Wuppertal, for example.
Which makes me think of the Philip Larkin poem “Churchgoing.” It was written in 1954, which is a long time ago, indicating that this trend has been going on for a considerable time. You can find the entire poem here, and I call your attention to the fact that in the poem the speaker has been bicycling, and stops in an empty church to take a look: “Hatless, I take off/My cycle-clips in awkward reverence …”
Here’s a longer excerpt:
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
And then of course there’s a poem written about a hundred years earlier than that (probably in 1851) by Matthew Arnold, and entitled “Dover Beach. I wrote at some length about the poem in this post. The stanza that is particularly apt:
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
I believe that Arnold was speaking of Christianity and of Europe, and he sensed what was coming there or what had already begun. He seemed to have seen the trend:
In an 1869 letter to his mother, he wrote:
“My poems represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day as people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it. It might be fairly urged that I have less poetical sentiment than Tennyson and less intellectual vigour and abundance than Browning; yet because I have perhaps more of a fusion of the two than either of them, and have more regularly applied that fusion to the main line of modern development, I am likely enough to have my turn as they have had theirs.”
Stefan Collini regards this as “an exceptionally frank, but not unjust, self-assessment. … Arnold’s poetry continues to have scholarly attention lavished upon it, in part because it seems to furnish such striking evidence for several central aspects of the intellectual history of the nineteenth century, especially the corrosion of ‘Faith’ by ‘Doubt’. No poet, presumably, would wish to be summoned by later ages merely as an historical witness, but the sheer intellectual grasp of Arnold’s verse renders it peculiarly liable to this treatment.”
Indeed.
On a tour of the UK a couple of decades ago the empty churches were already very noticeable, as our tour bus passed through town after town. Here and there, some of these churches had quite large For Sale signs at the roadside.
News articles we saw then said that some of these churches had been turned into music venues.
In London we were told that some of these very obvious empty London churches had been turned into “Welcome centers” for the flood of immigrants pouring in.
And this was 20 or more years ago.
Meanwhile, as of November 2025 one report I saw listed a total of 2838 Mosques in the UK, with another report recording the number of Mosques in London as currently being 332.
In a related story, the London borough of Tower Hamlets has apparently long since been taken over by Muslims, and at one point I believe I remember seeing a news article about how–in a massive display of chutzpa–these Muslims were demanding that all of the Christians buried at a nearby church cemetery should be dug up and moved somewhere else, so that these Muslims could bury their dead in “uncontaminated” ground.
I wonder if anyone in Europe has connected the emptiness of their churches with the incessant lurch leftward of those churches?
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
Pope Benedictt, a German, in 1969:
“We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists. …”
— “From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.”
— “The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. … The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain. …”
— “The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
As far as I can tell, occidental countries as a rule are zombie nations ruled by a political class which despises the vernacular population in their respective countries.
Give them to NGO’s.
I agree with Sharon W. The church was, at one time, the center of city or village life. Modern communications and travel have provided wider horizons. There are many things that demand the attention of people today – most of them leading away from the spiritual life.
The churches may become less important, and personal faith more important. What is wrong with a few neighbors gathered together to worship quietly in a backyard or living room?
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Mathew 18:20.
That may be the path forward until there is another spiritual awakening. A smaller, less powerful church until people demand more. Turning Point USA has stirred some recognition among younger people that they need faith in their lives.
Maybe the revival is in its infancy.
Traditionalist churches in the U.S. are brim-full of young men. There is hope.
Sharon W., I have several of Ratzinger’s books. He was a great loss, and his successors not up to his standard.
Kate-
I agree with your sentiment re Joseph Ratzinger. I am prettty Catholic, and take comfort in the fact that we are, all of us, errant children of our Heavenly Father.
The same phenomenon is clearly evident all over the older, eastern parts of the USA and into the Midwest and parts of the South. Many older churches are consolidating with other congregations and abandoning the fine old buildings, or simply closing. Many small towns and country churches experience the same fate.
Some mining towns in Eastern Pennsylvania sixty years ago had separate Roman Catholic churches for each ethnicity: Irish, Polish, Slovak, Italian, Hungarian etc., and multiple Orthodox churches as well for Ukrainians, Greeks, and Russians. Now they are lucky to maintain a single Catholic congregation and one Orthodox as the region depopulated and the usual social changes occurred.
Mainline Protestant denominations have been declining drastically as the clergy feminized and the churches became more politically leftist while letting their family outreach and child activities wither.
Art Deco @2:47pm,
Well and concisely stated.
Sharon W.
I can’t state it any better than Pope Benedict (who can?), but I had a similar thought when reading neo’s post. Attendance is lower, but the remaining attendees are likely devout. Prior to the 1980s, or so, at least in the U.S., at lot of folks probably often attended a church out of cultural habit. Once there was no social or professional stigma from not being a member of a congregation many folks stopped attending regularly.
On the other hand — I read about this phenomenon somewhere else; this was the top post of my search:
https://metrovoicenews.com/ministries-report-mosques-closing-iranians-coming-to-christ/
Just as a historical oddity, in the late 20th century, at least in Texas, some non-denominational Christian churches (the people) were so pressed for space (and possibly money) that they began converting deserted buildings in strip malls into worship centers.
A mainline church (First Baptist) in a small town outside Houston just built a new building for their congregation.
So, maybe the decline of churches is another Democrat-Republican axis of difference.
Deus lo Vult.
Some hew churches I have attended don’t look like churches. More like gigantic auditoriums, which they must be to seat the congregations. Parking is a problem.
Went to one last Easter. They offered baptism after the service. Had robes, make-up rooms, towels. It was going to be full-immersion in a separate room. Probably a dozen people went there.
They are very busy internally, with small-groups and other organizations. They are busy in the community. And they have armed security.
Went to one some years back. Enormous congregation. Sermon was good. It’s hard to look easy and make connected points. If you were too far from the dais, there was a jumbotron. Heard when the bought a new set of furniture, they saved $6000 by unloading it themselves. That’s a lot of furniture.
The old, traditional churches…. They may end up empty but it’s not the end of organized religion.
Snow on Pine on December 27, 2025 at 12:17 pm:
I had a similar impression during our vacation tour of England in 1990, even earlier than your two decades.
Kate on December 27, 2025 at 3:15 pm:
“Traditionalist churches in the U.S. are brim-full of young men. There is hope.”
J.J. on December 27, 2025 at 3:10 pm:
“Maybe the revival is in its infancy.”
Perhaps because I read mostly conservative web sites, it seemed to me that we probably were experiencing another (modest?) Great Awakening. Support for Christian practice seemed to be receiving more emphasis than it had in the 2000 to (say) 2018 time span.
I was/am slightly surprised to learn about Catholic churches in Germany, given my top level exposure to the Reformation, etc., suggesting The Church was being minimized or removed at every turn. On the other hand, my parents were reared in Protestant and Catholic households (1920’s-30’s) respectively, although by the time they met, dated, and married, they must have lost their faith since they raised us in a nonreligious setting (no church or Sunday school attendance). For some reason I never queried them about how and why they ended up with that belief posture, but kids were mostly just supposed to follow their parent’s guidance.
As buildings with stirring architecture, churches could be converted into “New College” type liberal arts schools with an anti-Woke/CRT emphasis. Perhaps a “constellation” type campus of several churches across a given region? The internet makes this much more practical than in prior decades.
@AesopFan: …they began converting deserted buildings in strip malls into worship centers.
In the San Francisco Mission District there were storefront churches, which were just a couple dozen folding chairs in a room and a preacher up front giving a revival-style talk. The attendees were mostly working-class Hispanics.
Back during my born-again phase I poked my head into one of those meetings and stayed for a while. I liked their enthusiasm. I felt good about what they were doing and wished them well. However, I already had a church.
I still track the Asbury Outpouring, a Christian revival lasting 16 days in February, 2023 at Asbury University in Kentucky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Asbury_revival
Some students stayed after a chapel service, then stayed longer, then people and more people kept coming. They prayed and sang and loved and testified. Eventually 50,000 – 70,000 people came from all over the world to participate.
Gen Z young were strongly represented. Kevin Brown, president of Asbury U, said:
__________________________________
The very last day that we had a formal service together, I’ll never forget it. Someone stood in front of all these students — 1,500 Gen Z students in the room — and said:
You will not be the generation defined by depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicidal ideation.
And to hear a cry come up from that group — someone said that if we had the spiritual eyes to see it, we would have seen an altar filled with loosened chains.
That’s my heart. That is the heart of the people around me.
This is a burdened generation, but God wants to use them, and we need to invest in them.
What happened on February 8th was only the catalyst for what’s truly happening.
–“Asbury Awakening’s Impact Ongoing, One Year Later: ‘An Overwhelming Glimpse of God'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUjIdbFgAmE
__________________________________
I wish them well too. Ultimately Christianity is about God and people, not buildings.
This post is about the decline of Christianity in Western Europe. All the examples – Germany, and the two poems – are about Western Europe. In the post I also wrote, “I believe that Arnold was speaking of Christianity and of Europe, and he sensed what was coming there or what had already begun.”
In the US, religion is following a somewhat different course so far.
neo,
A significant number of Europeans lost faith after witnessing one or both (depending on their age) world wars.
A significant number of Europeans lost faith after witnessing one or both (depending on their age) world wars.
==
I suspect if you pulled together the available data, you’d discover the implosion in Church attendance in Europe began around 1965.
Skillet – O Come, O Come Emmanuel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiErbpZHfbk
Your Love Never Fails – Chris Quilala / Jesus Culture (and Anthony Skinner)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoezWBPGRAc
Newsboys – God’s Not Dead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_OTz-lpDjw
Maverick City Music
(everything)
I saw the DW article mentioned at probably around the same time that our hostess did. The passing mention of Orthodox churches taking up residence in the odd vacant Lutheran (evang.) or Catholic church building caught my eye, of course. Taking a peek on the map at my old stomping grounds over there, it does look as if an Antiochian community has moved into what used to be a Protestant church of some kind in Fürth, for example. (There was a Methodist church right around there somewhere which I visited one time.)
Re: Decline of European Christianity
I agree with Art Deco on this one. Certainly, there was erosion from the WW I and II, but the real crisis came from the 60s onward.
In Ireland, for instance, the inflection points were in the late 70s/early 80s over contraception and divorce, then in the 90s over Church scandals and abuse.
I visited Ireland in the late 90s. An older man told me that many staunch Irish Catholics lost their faith over the 1992 scandal of Eamonn Casey, Bishop of Galway, who had a long-term affair with an American woman, fathered a son, and supported the son with church funds.
The Irishman’s son, ordinarily a cheerful, level-headed fellow, told me he would happily walk across the street to punch out the Christian Brother who tormented him and his classmates in school.
In Europe and America, Christian authorities often did a poor job of representing Christ. It can’t all be blamed on world wars and secularization.