Catholics and Protestants Sharing a Church Is Not New in the Land of the Reformation

When the organist plays the same organ for both a Catholic Mass and a Protestant service, it reflects a growing trend in German churches. St. Pius Catholic Church in Mannheim's Neuostheim district looks like a typical 1950s church building from the outside, but inside, Catholics and Protestants worship together, sharing the same space and altar for Communion and the Eucharist. The cooperation began in the early 1970s, says Annette Hübner, a 57-year-old Catholic who has lived in the area for over 50 years and is part of the parish team.

The then-pastor pushed for collaboration, and ecumenical services have been held since 1970. In late 2009, a massive water leak damaged the nearby Protestant Thomas Church beyond repair. What started as a temporary arrangement became a permanent solution, and the permanent solution grew into ecumenical friendship. Hübner notes, "It kept proving that it makes sense to work together, even beyond services.

A banner on St. Pius's facade reads "One Lord, one faith, one baptism. What sounds like a Sunday sermon phrase is everyday practice here. Catholics and Protestants sharing a church is not new in the land of the Reformation.

Germany historically has 65 so-called Simultankirchen, churches where rulers after the Reformation mandated dual use, sometimes with strict rules about who could enter at what time. Famous examples include Altenberg Cathedral near Cologne and St. Petri Cathedral in Bautzen, Saxony. While interdenominational use is common in hospital or airport chapels, the trend is now reaching regular parishes.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, churches explored the topic during the 2017 Reformation anniversary, 500 years after Martin Luther. Their guide, "And if we all move in together? offers practical advice for ecumenical church use, citing examples from the dioceses of Cologne, Aachen, Essen, Münster, and Paderborn.

It repeatedly notes "increasing building reductions. According to official church data from 2025, there are 24,500 Catholic and 21,100 Protestant churches nationwide, from small chapels to grand cathedrals. Every year, dozens of churches are abandoned, demolished, or repurposed.

New shared church spaces are emerging across Germany. In Schildow, on Berlin's northern outskirts, only one church will remain in use—the more representative Protestant one. The Archdiocese of Berlin's press office calls it an "ecumenical project with exemplary character, noting that despite "great ecumenical ease, Catholic participants remember "times when merely visiting a Protestant church was considered a sin.

Further east, in Dresden's Laubegast district, the Catholic parish of Heilige Familie meets every Saturday evening in a Free Church congregation's rooms. Eastern German Catholic bishops are accustomed to celebrating Mass in Protestant churches, as their own churches are often too small for major feasts like confirmations or parish anniversaries. The German Bishops' Conference is now working on guidelines for shared church use, driven by declining membership, unused buildings, and financial pressures.

Bishops often refer to this as a "Simultaneum, reviving the historical term. But St. Pius in Mannheim is different—it's not just a makeshift solution born of necessity. The congregations have embraced many commonalities.

From 2020 to 2022, the church was renovated and remodeled. Where the altar once stood, there is now the baptismal font, a central shared space. In the nave stands a new altar, sometimes red, sometimes gray.

Hübner explains, "The red sandstone comes from the Protestant church's altar, and the gray travertine from the Catholic church's altar. Both were ground up and cast together into the new altar. Its surface is partly smooth, partly rough with open grooves.

"That was very symbolic of our Catholic-Protestant relationship. We want to come together, but there are still points of friction, unresolved questions. Since 2018, the neighborhood has had no separate Catholic or Protestant kindergartens, but a newly built "Ecumenical Children's House Neuostheim" next to St. Pius.

St. Pius is a pioneer in this area, with few churches having such a long, deliberate ecumenical history. One example is the Emmaus Center in Bad Griesbach, near Passau in Germany's far southeast, which has offered ecumenical pastoral care for spa guests since 1987, described on its website as "a model case and a stroke of luck for ecumenism."