WHEN it comes to a choice between God and mammon, German churchgoers are overwhelmingly choosing mammon.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens have been leaving the German churches every year, appalled by child sex abuse scandals and outrageous spending by clerical fat cats.
The final straw for many is expected to be a tightening of the rules on the collection of the Kirchensteuer, the church tax, levied on anyone who formally registers as Catholic, Protestant or Jewish.
Someone on the average wage typically pays more than £1,000 a year to the church — about 9% on top of their regular tax bill.
In theory, the levy is already imposed on capital gains as well as income, but many Germans, especially the elderly with retirement nest eggs, had previously managed to avoid it.
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Under the new rules, due to come into force next year, banks will be legally required to report their customers’ religious affiliations rather than wait for account holders to volunteer the information.
German churches are already fabulously wealthy. Dr Carsten Frerk, who has spent years researching their finances, puts their total wealth at £341bn. As well as vast property empires, they also own banks, vineyards, breweries, hospitals and television companies.
The change was expected to boost church revenues by £109m a year, but so many people are now threatening to leave that it may backfire.
Last year about 179,000 people formally left the Catholic Church in Germany, up from 118,000 in 2012; nearly as many left Protestant churches. The churches report a further 50% rise in defections in the first six months of this year.
The situation is most serious in the Catholic diocese of Limburg in western Germany, where Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, 54, was suspended last year by the Pope for authorising a £26m renovation of his private quarters in his official residence — complete with a £12,000 bathtub and a £176,000 fish tank.
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Nicknamed “the Bishop of Bling”, he resigned in March.
Those who want to avoid paying church tax need merely to go to their local tax office, state they are no longer a believer and pay a £25 fee.
Some, however, try to have the best of both worlds: in 2007 Hartmut Zapp, a retired professor of ecclesiastical law, filed a lawsuit stating that he no longer wanted to pay the tax but wished to remain a member of the Catholic Church and to continue receiving holy communion.
The church, fearing millions would follow, fought him and in 2012 Zapp lost his case. At the same time the church issued a decree, backed by the Vatican, that said those who do not pay the tax would be denied the sacraments and might be refused a religious burial.