Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - In North Rhine-Westphalia there will be almost no Protestant church services in attendance on Christmas Eve and the Christmas holidays.
The Evangelical Church of Westphalia and the Lippische Landeskirche had already advised against it last week.
The Rhenish President Manfred Rekowski had said that the communities should decide for themselves.
On Monday, a spokesman for the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland announced: "Based on all the feedback we have so far, between 80 and 90 percent of the congregations have decided that they will replace their current offers with alternatives."
Rekowski also renounces the originally planned Christmas Eve church service in a Wuppertal cemetery.