The number of practicing Christians in Germany is falling. The result is surplus churches. What happens to these empty houses of worship?
On its final day, St. Anna's is almost full again. A choir is singing and the small organ is supporting them. But this is the last mass in the small Catholic church in Gildehaus, a district of Bad Bentheim near the German-Dutch border. In future, the building will no longer be a place of worship.
Towards the end of the service, the demise of this church becomes achingly real. Worshippers from the congregation open the altar and remove the relics. These are small relics of a saint, be they bone fragments or pieces of textile, which are always incorporated into the altar of a consecrated Catholic church.
The decommissioning of churches is an emotional affair. "It affects the heart and the eyes. It's moving," Catholic pastor Hubertus Goldbeck tells DW, wiping the beginnings of a tear from the corner of his eye.
What his small congregation is going through is something that many devout Christians across Germany are also facing.
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