Europe faces a looming architectural crisis as thousands of vacant or underused churches across the continent risk abandonment over the next decade. While some dioceses sell these sturdy buildings for private residential or commercial conversion, urban planners, artists, and community organizations are stepping in to repurpose them as galleries, bookstores, and sports facilities.
The Declining Congregation Numbers Driving the European Church Crisis
The transformation of sacred spaces reflects a broad demographic shift away from traditional religious observance across Western Europe. According to data compiled by church heritage networks, approximately two-thirds of Europeans identified as Christian in 2020, representing a nine-percentage-point decline over a single decade. Many residents raised in Christian households now report having no religious affiliation, while dioceses increasingly consolidate parishes to manage shrinking operational budgets and smaller congregations.
Lilian Grootswagers-Teuns, chair of the advisory committee for the Belgian-based nonprofit network Future for Religious Heritage, stated that churches are being sold daily across countries such as Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Italy as a wave of secularization sweeps the continent.
Temporary Art Installations Occupy Doomed Brutalist Sanctuaries
In Germany’s industrial Ruhr region, the 16th Manifesta biennial has turned vacant and decommissioned churches into contemporary art venues. St. Marien Church in northern Essen, a mid-century brutalist structure featuring dark brick facades and handmade stained glass, hosted exhibitions showcasing work by international artists. The exhibits included a performance by South Korean vocalists translating bird song into human voice, a sculpture built from overturned shopping carts, and a video installation titled Sleeping Jesus by the Danish art collective Superflex.
Hedwig Fijen, director of the Manifesta biennial, projected that Germany alone will see more than 20,000 churches abandoned within the next five to ten years, with thousands more emptying across Western Europe as ties to institutional Christianity weaken. Despite its role in the current art exhibition, St. Marien Church faces imminent demolition following the conclusion of the biennial. Other Ruhr region venues, such as St. Thomas Church in Gelsenkirchen and St. Ludgerus Church in Bochum, have similarly transitioned away from religious use to host community and cultural programming.
Pioneering Conversions Turn Sanctuaries Into Bookstores and Sports Courts
In the Netherlands, where secularization waves in the 1960s and 1970s emptied out religious buildings early, approximately 1,700 of the country’s 7,000 churches have already closed or been sold. Dutch municipalities have repurposed these properties into vibrant public and commercial hubs, transforming spaces into exhibition halls, breweries, nightclubs, and healthcare centers.
Commercial and recreational adaptations have also taken root. In Arnhem, a local church interior now operates as a padel tennis facility, while a centuries-old Dominican church in Maastricht was successfully converted into a prominent bookstore in 2006. In Amsterdam and beyond, communities have consistently advocated for retaining these durable, centrally located structures rather than allowing them to decay.
Urban Planning and Government Subsidies Shape Alternative Futures
In Scandinavia, government intervention has altered the trajectory of vacant religious real estate. Lindblad referred to these state-backed properties as "zombie churches," noting that public funding preserves them as active civic anchors.
Meanwhile, in Southern European countries like Italy, Portugal, and Spain, where ties to the Roman Catholic Church remain tighter, state and academic institutions are exploring public reuse options for historic monastic complexes originally emptied during 19th-century government decrees.
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