Across Europe, declining church attendance is leaving thousands of religious buildings without a clear future. As congregations disappear and parishes merge, artists, architects, preservationists and local authorities are increasingly looking at churches not as abandoned relics, but as potential community spaces.
In northern Essen, Germany, St. Marien Church offers a striking example of both the challenge and the opportunity.
The mid-20th-century Brutalist building, known for its dark brick façade and handmade stained-glass window, has recently drawn tens of thousands of visitors as part of Manifesta 16 Ruhr, a major contemporary art biennial.
Inside, visitors have encountered a performance in which two Korean singers recreate bird songs using their voices, sculptures made from overturned plastic shopping carts and “Sleeping Jesus”, a video installation by Danish artists Superflex.
But the exhibition may also be the church’s final chapter. Once the biennial ends in October, St. Marien is scheduled to be demolished.
It is one of thousands of churches facing an uncertain future across Europe. More than 20,000 churches in Germany alone could be abandoned over the next five to 10 years, according to Manifesta director Hedwig Fijen. Similar pressures are emerging across Western Europe as societies become increasingly secular.
“There is no central plan” for what will happen to the buildings, Fijen said. But cultural organisations, artists, preservation groups and urban planners are exploring ways to give them new purposes, from arts venues and bookstores to healthcare facilities and other community spaces.
A European architectural legacy at risk
Churches once stood at the centre of European community life. They were often built in the heart of towns and cities, designed to last for generations.
The tradition stretches back centuries. European towns and villages were historically structured around churches long before the modern nation-state emerged.
That role has gradually weakened since the middle of the 20th century. Changing social norms, declining religious affiliation, demographic shifts and scandals affecting religious institutions have all contributed to falling attendance.
A Pew Research Center report found that around two-thirds of Europeans identified as Christian in 2020, down by roughly nine percentage points from a decade earlier. Many people raised as Christians now describe themselves as having no religious affiliation.
As congregations shrink, parishes are merging and unused churches are increasingly being sold. Some end up as private homes or hotels, while others are converted into cultural venues, tourist attractions or healthcare centres.
In some cases, the transition is less orderly. Religious objects have been abandoned or discarded as churches close, highlighting the scale and speed of the transformation.
Yet the buildings themselves remain valuable to many communities.
Their size, architecture and durability make them difficult to replace, while their historical role means they can retain a strong connection to local identity even after their religious function disappears.
“These buildings have been places that provide a sense of social security,” said Lilian Grootswagers-Theuns, president of the advisory board of Future for Religious Heritage, a European network focused on vacant religious buildings.
Churches, she argued, have traditionally provided places where communities could help one another, support vulnerable people and maintain social connections.
From places of worship to places of connection
Manifesta 16 Ruhr is experimenting with what that future could look like.
The biennial has used abandoned and decommissioned churches across Germany’s Ruhr region, a former mining and industrial centre, as venues for cultural projects.
Many of the buildings were constructed or rebuilt after World War II around the idea of neighbourhood life organised within a short distance. Churches were often surrounded by kindergartens, schools and retirement homes, creating a central hub for local communities.
But decades of declining attendance have left many of these spaces underused.
Manifesta has proposed a range of possible new functions, including art and music installations, a tea garden, an indoor beach and even a basketball court.
The objective is not simply to preserve the buildings as monuments, but to return them to everyday community life.
The need for such spaces may be growing at the same time that churches are losing their traditional role. Organisers point to increasing loneliness, particularly among younger people, and a growing demand for places where communities can meet.
Many of Manifesta’s projects were developed in cooperation with local residents, reflecting an effort to make the buildings useful rather than simply preserving them as empty heritage sites.
The Netherlands offers a glimpse of the future
The Netherlands has already experienced much of this transformation.
During waves of secularisation in the 1960s and 1970s, many religious buildings were converted into new uses. Of roughly 7,000 churches in the country, about 1,700 have already been closed or sold, according to Grootswagers-Theuns, who expects the pace to accelerate.
In Amsterdam, former churches have become nightclubs, breweries and exhibition spaces.
In one Dutch community, residents successfully fought to preserve their local church, which was eventually converted into a healthcare centre.
Another prominent example is Maastricht’s centuries-old Dominican church, which was transformed into a bookstore in 2006.
These projects demonstrate that preserving a church does not necessarily mean preserving its original function. The building can survive by becoming something else.
The “zombie churches” of Scandinavia
Scandinavia has taken a different approach.
In several Nordic countries, churches and other religious properties are owned by the state. Governments continue to maintain many of the buildings and keep them open, even when congregations have become very small.
Heritage researcher Henrik Lindblad has described some of them as “zombie churches” — buildings that remain operational despite having lost much of their former community base.
The challenge, he argues, is to transform them into “living heritage” by opening them up as public and communal spaces.
That approach could allow communities to preserve historic buildings without requiring them to maintain religious functions that no longer reflect how people live.
Southern Europe faces the same challenge
The trend is not limited to traditionally Protestant or secular parts of Europe.
Countries such as Italy, Portugal and Spain have historically maintained much stronger ties to Roman Catholicism, but they too are confronting the changing role of religious buildings.
Portugal provides an early example. When the state dissolved Catholic religious orders in the 19th century, monasteries and convents were emptied, sold and frequently converted into hospitals and schools or divided into private residences.
Today, groups are once again looking at these historic properties and considering how they could be used for public purposes.
The key, according to architect and researcher Rolando Volzone, is to think of religious buildings as more than physical structures.
If these spaces are understood as places designed to bring people together, he argues, they can be given new functions while retaining something of their original character.
That may ultimately be the central question facing Europe’s empty churches: not whether they can remain churches, but whether they can continue serving the communities that built them.
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