The diocese of Limburg lost thousands of members in the Corona year 2020.
The same applies to the diocese of Fulda.
However, both church regions lost fewer believers as a result of resignations than in the previous year.
At the end of the year, around 580,000 Catholics still belonged to the diocese of the Limburg bishop and chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing.
That was about 13,000 fewer believers than in 2019, as the diocese announced on Wednesday.
That is a minus of 2.2 percent.
More resignations than because of Tebartz
Almost 8,200 people left the Catholic Church.
A trend that had been going on for years continued.
In the previous year there were more.
A year ago, the diocese reported 9439 resignations.
Up until then, 2013 had been the worst with almost 8,000 withdrawals.
At that time, the diocese was shaken by scandals surrounding the former bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst.
Overall, the corona pandemic had a very negative impact on church life, the diocese reported.
For a while, no visitors were allowed to attend church services, and the number of baptisms and weddings, for example, fell significantly compared to the previous year.
“The proportion of all Catholics who attended church services fell from 8.6 to 5.8 percent.” The Limburg diocese extends over parts of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Mainz points out unusual baptisms
At the turn of the year there were still just under 687,000 believers in the diocese of Bishop Peter Kohlgraf in the diocese of Mainz.
That was around 16,000 fewer people than a year earlier.
The number of people leaving the church was around 8,500 (2019: 9,900), as the diocese announced on Wednesday.
Due to the corona pandemic, the number of baptisms was more than half lower than in 2019, and there were significantly fewer weddings than in the previous year.
The quota of church service participants fell from 8.4 percent to 5.1 percent.
"Last year we had to keep the churches closed for many weeks, and to this day we celebrate our services with major restrictions, especially when it comes to the number of participants," said Bishop Kohlgraf.
About one third of the territory of the Diocese of Mainz is in Rhineland-Palatinate and about two thirds in Hesse.
The downward trend continues in Fulda
The dwindling membership in the diocese of Fulda continues.
At the end of 2020, the diocese had 369,854 Catholics, 6951 fewer than in the previous year, as the diocese announced on Wednesday.
In addition to the demographic development, resignations are also responsible for this: the diocese registered a total of 3,486 church resignations, 239 fewer than in the previous year.
The numbers followed the nationwide trend and confirmed the path of church development and reorientation of the diocese, it said. Like the entire Catholic Church in Germany, the Diocese of Fulda is facing major challenges. "Declining resources, decreasing budget funds and growing tasks are faced today with a society that is moving ever faster and that is looking for answers to the questions of its present more secularly and more enlightened than ever before."