The number of people leaving the church in North Rhine-Westphalia has increased more than at any time since the statistics were recorded.
In 2022, a total of 223,500 people left the Church.
That is 44 percent more than in the previous year, when 155,000 people turned their backs on the churches.
The number reached a new high for the second time in a row.
This is the result of statistics from the Ministry of Justice in Düsseldorf, which were published on Friday.
This includes the 129 district courts of the federal state.
In the previous year, the number of resignations in the judicial districts in the area of the Archdiocese of Cologne had increased significantly more than in those of the other dioceses in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The statistics for 2022 indicate that the numbers of the dioceses have converged at a very high level.
The district courts in the dioceses of Aachen, Essen, Münster and Paderborn also recorded a strong increase.
Reports on the number of people leaving in individual municipalities also indicate that the number of people leaving the Protestant church was significantly higher last year.
The Düsseldorf Ministry of Justice does not break down the resignations by denomination.
What is striking is that the traditional gap between large cities and rural regions hardly plays any role anymore, if at all.
The rural districts of the district courts of Münster, Arnsberg, Kleve and Paderborn are among the regions with the strongest growth of well over fifty percent.
In the district of Paderborn, the number of people leaving the church increased by almost ninety percent last year.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, church exits must be declared at the district court or a notary.
The number of resignations declared at the notary is not fully recorded in the statistics of the Ministry of Justice.
However, it is low.
Definitive statements on the number of Catholics and Protestants leaving the church will only be possible once the churches publish their numbers.