A service center for everyone – whether Protestant or Catholic. This is to be built in the Langwasser district of Nuremberg next year. The congregations of both denominations are setting up a joint parish office that will take care of the concerns of 16,000 members of the Catholic and Protestant churches. According to the diocese of Eichstätt, this is the first ecumenical parish office in Bavaria.
The “central contact point” is to be set up near a large shopping center, as it went on to say: “The church has the task of being close to people who cannot find their way to the community on their own. Therefore “The “central contact point” has been set up in an easily accessible place where there are a lot of people in Langwasser,” said project manager Ilona-Maria Kühn. The office should be clearly visible from the shopping center.
The committees of the Catholic parish in Langwasser and the four Protestant communities have already approved the project. For Kühn, the ecumenical office community is also a response to the “increasingly tense financial situation of both churches”. The project plays an important pioneering role in ecumenical cooperation. Savings are expected, for example when purchasing office supplies, candles or services together.
Both churches in Germany have had to cope with significant losses in membership numbers in recent years. As a result, there is also a lack of income from church tax.
Ecumenical cooperation has a long tradition in Langwasser, said Christine Schürmann, dean of the Nuremberg-East vice deanery. They are “very, very happy” that the shared office is now being realized.
Anyone who would like to register for a baptism in the district, is looking for a date for a wedding or would like to organize a church funeral for a relative can soon contact the ecumenical office. People in need or volunteers can also find contacts there.
“In view of declining membership numbers and thus declining resources,” we want to “pool forces and thus offer more service together than any church would be able to do on its own,” emphasized Kühn. The classic parish office offering should be supplemented by advisory services from specialist church departments. The opening is scheduled for May 9, 2024.
Diocese of Eichstätt Evangelical Church in Nuremberg-Langwasser
