The churches in Germany are losing members drastically every year. Look at the following figures showing the number of people signing out of the organization year by year:
Year Evangelic Church Catholic Church
1970 202.823 69.454
1980 119.814 66.438
1985 140.553 74.112
1987 140.638 81.598
1988 138.700 79.562
1989 147.753 93.010
1990 144.143 143.530
1991 237.874 167.933
1992 361.256 192.766
1993 284.699 153.753
1994 290.302 155.797
1995 296.782 168.244
1996 225.602 133.275
1997 196.602 123.813
1998 182.730 119.265
1999 192.880 129.013
2000 188.557 129.496
2001 171.789 113.724
2002 174.227 119.405
2003 177.162 129.598
2004 141.567 101.252
2005 119.561 89.565
2006 121.598 84.389
2007 131.000 93.667
2008 168.901 121.155
The figures are officially taken from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany and the administration of the evangelic and catholic church in Germany.
The following chart shows the number of people leaving the evangelic and Catholic Church every year in Germany.
The churches use their income from the church tax for the following:
Catholic Church:
- Employees: +- 60%
- Administration: +- 10%
- Buildings: +- 10%
- Schools and education: +- 10%
- Social work and help for the poor: +- 10% (What a scandal, because the churches always ask to help the poor)
Evangelic Church:
- Employees: +- 70%
- Administration: +- 10%
- Buildings: +- 10%
- Schools and education & Social work and help for the poor: +- 10%
Income out of church tax 2002:
- Catholic Church: 4.1 Billion Euros
- Evangelic Church: 4.3 Billion Euros
- Total: 8.4 Billion Euros tax free money
- Paid by church members: 5.05 Billion Euros (60.1%)
- Paid out of country tax funds: 3.35 Billion Euros (39.9%)
The following statistics show the amount of members of the church organizations.
| Year | Population | Ev. Church | in % | Cat. Church | in % | Total | in % |
| 2001 | 82 440 309 | 26 453 592 | 32.1 | 26 656 014 | 32.3 | 53 109 606 | 64.4 |
| 2002 | 82 536 680 | 26 211 487 | 31.8 | 26 466 076 | 32.1 | 52 677 563 | 63.8 |
| 2003 | 82 531 671 | 25 836 192 | 31.3 | 26 165 153 | 31.7 | 52 001 345 | 63.0 |
| 2004 | 82 500 849 | 25 629 534 | 31.1 | 25 986 384 | 31.5 | 51 615 918 | 62.6 |
| 2005 | 82 437 995 | 25 385 618 | 30.8 | 25 905 908 | 31.4 | 51 291 526 | 62.2 |
| 2006 | 82 314 906 | 25 100 727 | 30.5 | 25 684 890 | 31.2 | 50 785 617 | 61.7 |
| 2007 | 82 217 837 | 24 832 110 | 30.2 | 25 461 118 | 31.0 | 50 293 228 | 61.2 |
| 2008 | 82 002 356 | 25 176 517 | 30.7 |
Nondenominational people in Germany
Since the 20th century there is no more state church in Germany.
In 1970 the figure of 3.9% for nondenominational people was determined by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany in the Federal Republic of Germany at that time (Protestant 49%, Roman-Catholic 44.6%, Muslim 1.3%). The portion of the population without denomination amounted to 32.3% in 2004 and 32.5% in 2005 in the whole federal republic. In 2008 it rose once more to 34.1%. Besides, the group of the people without denomination is especially high in the new federal states where – according to statistics – between 65% and 80% of the population are not members of any religion. Causality for this high value was the atheistic adjustment of the GDR by which the churches had strongly lost to social meaning and humanity.
In Europe a trend towards the disengagement from church is recognizable in general.
The group of atheists, agnostics and therefore nondenominational people are growing from year to year.
The chart below shows the figure in 2008: Konfessionsfrei = nondenominational people
I look forward to reading more from you, Thomas. Thanks for sharing with us something to aim for 🙂
The last comment. If you look at the chart carefully, you see a green and a dark purple section. That are the others like muslims and so on. It is clearly stated that not all “nondenominational people" are Atheists but also Agnostics and so on. I was just trying to say that churches are looking members from year to year and not stating that all 34% of the “nondenominational people" are Atheists. But the trend is positive.
Thanks for the article Thomas. I also hope to hear more
From you in the future….
Not paying church tax (protestant or Catholic) is also including the large number of Muslims in Germany, also other faith groups whether Christians (Baptist, Orthodox …), Hindu’s, Buddhist etc. are not paying church tax.
To put up some numbers of believe statistics in Europe (Spiegel-Online in April 2009)
I do not belief in god (atheist) GER = 12%, France = 19%, UK = 16%
I do not know if god exists and it can’t be found out (agnostic) GER = 11%, France = 16%, UK = 14%
I do not belief in a personal God but some higher spirit (deist) GER = 33%, France = 14%, UK = 20%
Sometimes I belief in God, sometime not : GER = 6%, France = 11%, UK = 12%
I have doubt, but overall I think there is God : GER = 15%, France = 14%, UK = 13%
I know there is God and have no doubts : GER = 22%, France = 24%, UK = 23%
Don’t know what to answer : GER = 1%, France = 2%, UK = 2%
Awesome stats! I wonder how long it would take to have the same stats here..
Hi Thomas,
Please do not see my post as critique of your article, but as adding some further details to it especially the percentages of the atheist/agnostic/deist/theist distribution in Europe.
It would be interesting to see the latest exodus figures of Catholic tax payers in Germany after the last child raping scandals of Catholic clergy.
And it will be a very long way to go for the Philippines, with the self reinforcing spiral of overpopulation –> poverty –> poor education –> high religiosity -> overpopulation ….. to close the cycle of the downwards spiral.
And as a few studies (Gregory Paul ; Zuckermann) showed now the strong correlation of high religiosity as an indicator of a failed and dysfunctional society (high crime rates, income disparities, low social/health security, high stress) it will be difficult to escape from this cycle.
Hi Thomas! Thanks for writing this article for the blog! Its nice to see the situation in other countries and dream of the day when we can get to those statistics ourself. Though perhaps our countries aren't directly comparable.
I don't know if I have any problems with using tax money to preserve old churches. They are cultural artifacts despite of their baggage and some of them can be inspiring in terms of the human achievement it took to build them. Although now that I think about it I think the church should have enough of their own money to restore the building themselves.
Or better yet the church can go build themselves a new building and the old churches can be sold to the government for preservation and for secular purposes like a public museum or library. Which would be really damn cool.
Yes I am a German yet staying in The Philippines since one month. Sorry for some spelling mistaces! 🙂
I am also a member of the HVD (That is a very large Atheist community in Germany)
"But I can say that *surely* up to 80% of the peoples from the east of Germany are Atheists, depending on the area, because of their socialism background from the former GDR when Germany was splitted."
Why, Thomas are you in Germany or have been?
Possible. I noticed you wrote stopped as 'stoppt'.
I have to give a comment to the last reply. What I ment by “nondenominational people" are at least peoples with agnostic thoughts, of course not all can be atheists … for now 🙂 ! But the trend is good cause already 34% + of the Germany are without confession and no longer following blindly the multi billion tax free money making organisation church. But I can say that surely up to 80% of the peoples from the east of Germany are Atheists, depending on the area, because of their socialism background from the former GDR when Germany was splitted.
From what I know and have read, peoles who dont pay church tax also dont go to church anymore. (This is surely not 100% but near to). Specially in a village where the priest knows all his members he will also know if someone has stoppt paying church tax.
The next scandal is that german government is giving money to churches for renovations because they claim to be a part of cultural buildings.
The expectaion is that in 2020 maybe only 50% of the peoples will belong to religions in Germany.
“nondenominational people” just means that these people are not paying the 8-9% church tax, but went to the municipal registration office (similar in Philippines = NSO) and delisted from the tax registration as evangelical (Protestant Lutheran) or Catholic. This is not preventing to attend Sunday mass or not believing in God, it just reduces the tax burden.
And the amounts mentioned in the article (pure church tax collection) can be doubled when adding the cost of collection from authorities in behalf of the church plus several forms of subsidies of the church institutions from the government. The “ 10% spend for the poor” is more for missionary work and proselytizing the vulnerable, not so much about helping (feeding/housing/supporting) the poor.
The assets of the 2 main churches in Germany were 60 Billion Euro in stock holdings alone at the beginning of 2009 (in the deeps of the crisis), plus huge assets in form of government bonds plus 8.5 billion square meters of real estate property often in downtown prime locations is resulting into assets of at least 500 Billion more likely 800 billion Euro.
So just a tiny percentage of these church assets is already matching the entire budget of the RP.
So how was this with the camel is easier fitting through the eye of a needle than a rich man entering heaven ??
Thomas, no I love spelking mistakes. That is one of the fascinating things that make humans. See, I made one myslef! ;p