Bike Shops, Boxing Rings and Apartments: What Germany Is Doing With Hundreds of Empty Churches

• Germany’s Catholic Church closed 611 churches between 2000 and 2024
• Protestants estimate 300 to 350 churches shut in the same period
• The two main churches lost more than a million members in 2024 alone
• Former churches now house a bike shop, a boxing arena, apartments and a hotel

Germany’s shrinking congregations are leaving hundreds of churches empty, and many are being turned into shops, sports venues and homes, Deutsche Welle reported in December 2025.

According to the German Bishops’ Conference, 611 Catholic churches were closed and decommissioned between 2000 and 2024. The Protestant Church estimates that between 300 and 350 of its churches were permanently shut over the same period. In 2024 alone, Germany’s two main churches lost more than a million members. Today 45% of Germans belong to either the Protestant or Catholic Church, down from 69% thirty years ago.

The new uses are varied. St Rochus Church in Jülich now houses a bicycle shop. An abbey in Wettringen, north of Münster, has become a football venue, and the Church of the Resurrection in Kleve operates as a boxing arena. St Luke’s Church in Essen was converted into apartments in 2012 and 2013, and a former convent in Düsseldorf is now a four-star hotel called Mutterhaus.

For clergy and parishioners, closing a church is rarely just a property decision. Pastor Hubertus Goldbeck described the emotional weight of decommissioning a church: “It affects the heart and the eyes. It’s moving.”

The German experience shows that a church building can outlive its congregation and still serve the community. Conversions to housing are especially significant in cities short of homes, but they are expensive: old buildings need new floors, insulation and services, and heritage rules can limit what is possible. The choice of buyer and new use also shapes how a neighbourhood remembers the church.

In Jamaica, church buildings are more likely to be full than empty, but the German story still matters. Diaspora congregations in the UK and Europe often worship in buildings that older denominations have given up, and some Jamaican churches with falling rural membership already face the question of what to do with a second or third building. Planning a dignified future use, whether housing, a community centre or a school, is better stewardship than letting a church decay.

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