Because of long-term sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, an affected person is suing the Archdiocese of Cologne for around 800,000 euros in damages.

The plaintiff's law firm informed the Evangelisches Pressedienst (epd) in Bonn that the civil lawsuit was received by the Cologne Regional Court on Friday.

According to media information, this is the first such lawsuit against the church as an institution in Germany.

The case is unusual because the accused clergyman is already dead and the crimes are actually statute-barred from a legal point of view.

According to the plaintiff and his attorney, the evidence is clear.

The priest admitted the crimes before his death.

The clergyman had sexually abused the plaintiff as a boy in the 1970s in at least 320 cases - according to the news magazine "Spiegel", the crimes occurred during altar boy camps in the Eifel.

The incidents are also listed in the abuse report by the law firm Gercke-Wollschläger, which lists a large number of cases of sexual abuse in the archdiocese.

Complaint, although the act is statute-barred

The plaintiff's lawyer justifies the fact that a lawsuit is possible even though the alleged perpetrator has died and the deeds are statute-barred by referring to the so-called official liability of the church as an institution under public law.

In civil proceedings, the institution being sued must therefore actively claim that the offenses have expired.

However, the archdiocese failed to do so - apparently for moral reasons and in order to be able to make further recognition payments to those affected.

The plaintiff, who according to "Spiegel" has been working as an employee in the Archdiocese of Cologne for 37 years, also received such a payment of 25,000 euros.

As a result of years of abuse, he says he suffers from sleep disorders, migraines and neurodermatitis.

The priest himself was banned from practicing his profession, deprived of his title and fined in 2014.

In addition, he was ordered not to approach children in the future.

The Archdiocese initially did not comment on the lawsuit, because "at the current time" it had no claim for damages, as stated at the request of the epd.

When asked by WDR, the archdiocese pointed out that in 2021 they had called for other people who had been affected by the priest's attacks.

Every single person affected will be “provided with the necessary help and support,” it said.