Good friday in Hamburg Germany

Sogger

Does anyone know if pubs and night clubs are open in Hamburg Germany this year on good friday ?

Hotblack Desiato

I don't see why not. In developed countries it's not normal to use the law to try to force religious devotion as we used to do in Ireland.

robindch

The city's official page on easter doesn't indicate there's much closed beyond the Hamburg DOM funfair which looks fairly lame to start with.

https://www.hamburg.com/visitors/plan-ahead/11889694/easter/

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322129#Comment_120322129

You haven't had much to do with German Sunday closing laws, so.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120323476#Comment_120323476

Indeed, many of the churches still collect tithes there too, https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Kirchensteuer Germany is surprisingly conservative when it comes to religious observation.

run_Forrest_run

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322129#Comment_120322129

Germany is a fairly well-developed country I'm sure you'll agree. Good luck trying to find many places open around events like Good Friday and Easter Sunday..a land that respects religion can also be 'developed'.

Hotblack Desiato

What we used to do and the Sunday closing they still have in Germany aren't normal, no 😁

But how could I have forgotten? I spent a summer working in Munich years ago, half day closing in almost all shops on Saturday!!! never mind Sunday. Hard to pin the Saturday closing (since gone) on religion but in any case it was a complete pain in the hoop. Had to steal a bog roll out of the U-Bahn jacks one Sunday as literally nowhere was open. Statute of limitations well passed on that though - phew

These laws may have been religiously inspired years ago but I suspect their continuation has a lot more to do with union etc. pressure rather than any political influence of churches these days. Also church taxes are voluntary and give people a very significant incentive to officially leave the church of their upbringing rather than pursuing the "catholic/protestant in name only" lifestyle à la Ireland - where an official process to leave the RCC no longer even exists.

Peregrinus

If "normal' means "what they do in America" then, no, Sunday closing isn't normal. But if it means "what is commonly done in many countries" then, yeah, Sunday closing is quite normal. Germany is not particularly an outlier here.

And public holidays marking religious festivals are also "normal". Apart from Christmas, obviously, various European countries have public holidays for the Epiphany, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, St. George's Day, Ascension Thursday, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, Sts Cyril and Methodius Day, the Assumption, Reformation Day, All Saints Day, the Immaculate Conception and St. Stephen's Day.

As for there being "no official process to leave the RCC", well, that's kind of a consequence of adhering to the American version of separation of church and state.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058286918/good-friday-in-hamburg-germany

Pretty much everything entertaining will be closed in Germany on Good Friday - it's federal law.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322129#Comment_120322129

You don’t know much about the Germanic part of the world then… On Good Friday, beyond the paper shop at the station you be looking to find much else open.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120326968#Comment_120326968

At this stage Ireland is no different to the rest of Europe when it comes to religion…. You just have not experienced it.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328259#Comment_120328259

Pretty much all over Europe actually….

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328273#Comment_120328273

95% of state-funded primary schools in Ireland are controlled by a church. That's certainly different from European norms. We also have a constitution which imposes religious oaths for certain state offices. And someone said we follow the American model of separation of church and state?!?

Having public holidays which correspond to religious holidays is obviously a carry-over from history. In most cases before these holidays were Christian they were pagan and ultimately derive from solar worship like Newgrange. Knowing the solar cycle precisely in ancient agricultural societies was kinda important, hence the sostices and equinoxes were celebrated.

So it's supposedly the European norm to have everything shut on Good Friday yet when we did that we had tourists bewildered - which wouldn't have been the case if they'd had the same at home, and I'm talking Europeans not UKUSAians here.

The official Hamburg website, as Robindch posted in post no.3, mentions that the funfair will be closed on GF but nothing else. This doesn't correspond to "everything being closed is normal" either.

Peregrinus

Just to be clear, Hotblack: I wasn't saying that Ireland follows the American model of separation of church and state; I was saying that you do.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328257#Comment_120328257

it is a consequence of the RCC not wanting such a process and removing the only path to it some years ago.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120333745#Comment_120333745

They had only introduced it a few years before that again, and they dropped it because virtually nobody was using it and it was giving a wholly unrealistic picture of the reality.

The reason they have a process in Germany today is because the State provides it — because they have a church tax they need to know who is, and who is not, in any church (not just the Catholic church). But the Anglo-American understanding of separation of church and state entirely rules out any notion of the state regulating church membership processes. In the Anglo-American system, the state can no more determine who is a member of a church than the church can determine who is a citizen of the state.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120333803#Comment_120333803

in what way was it giving a wholly unrealistic picture of the reality?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120333844#Comment_120333844

OK, put the kettle on and make some tea.

The short version:

Large numbers of people were leaving the church. Tiny numbers of them were arsed to go through the rather bureaucratic process that you were supposed to go through to be treated as having left for certain purposes to do with marriage law. The result was that significant numbers of non-Catholics were being treated for these purposes as if they were Catholics, which was producing anomalous outcomes.

But it got worse. Going through the process was only ever necessary to be treated as having left for these limited purposes. So, you have people who hadn't gone through the process and so were regarded as Catholic for marriage purposes, but non-Catholic for other purposes of canon law. That was also producing anomalous outcomes, as you'd expect.

So, they came to the conclusion that introducing the process had been a Bad Idea, Badly Thought Out; it wasn't serving the purpose they hoped it would serve (which was to provide certainty over who was, and who was not, Catholic) and they should ditch the whole thing.

The longer version, for nerds only:

The original problem they were trying to solve was this: In Germany, as you know, they have a church tax. When you're baptised in Germany, the church sends a notification to the state about this. Then, when you start earning money and paying tax, the state levies the church tax on you and sends the proceeds to the church. If you don't wish to pay the church tax (or wish to pay it to another church, etc) you notify the state that you are not a Catholic. The state stops deducting your church tax/sending it to the Catholic church. The state also notifies the Catholic church that you have said that you are no longer a Catholic. The church then treats you as not a Catholic.

But things got sticky when a group of Catholics who very much considered themselves Catholic and were active participants, but objected to the church tax and the associated entanglement of the church with the state, went through the state process to deregister as Catholics but notified their bishops that they were still Catholics and would remain active in the church (and would send donations directly to their parishes, instead of paying the church tax).

The German church wasn't thrilled about this, but they couldn't really stop people doing it. It had the consequence that, so far as the church was concerned, the state records of who was and who was not Catholic were no longer reliable. This offended their tidy Germanic minds, and they came up with the idea that, to solve the problem, Canon law should effectively replicate the German civil process; if you wanted to be not-a-Catholic you would notify your bishop directly, and the church would treat that, rather than any communication from the tax office, as definitive.

Rome wasn't thrilled about the idea — the Germans have great respect for bureaucratic processes but the Italians do not — but the German Catholic church is influential in Rome, and eventually the idea was incorporated into canon law, but only (as mentioned) for the limited purpose of canon law on marriage. I don't know whether this was seen as a kind of toe-in-the-water trial, or whether the Germans argued that uncertainty about this was particularly problematic when it came to marriage rules.

As mentioned, the whole thing was a bust. Most people who fall away from Catholicism do so because they have lost interest, they find Catholicism/religion irrelevant or repellent, they dislike or disapprove of the church. As anybody but a German could have predicted these people are not, by and large, motivated to engage in correspondence with bishops. So the numbers availing themselves of the canon law process were tiny. Even the Germans eventually conceded that the process wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, so after a few years the whole thing was axed.

(Buried somewhere in the trackless desert that is the boards.ie archives is a post of mine in which I looked at figures issued by countmeout.ie [remember them?] on numbers of people in Ireland using the deregistration process at a time when it was still current. Even building in some fairly generous assumptions the number looked like an average of roughly one person per diocese per year. Do you think that's a reasonable estimate of numbers leaving Catholicism in Ireland? No, me neither. It's off by orders of magnitude. The census figure from those years tell a much more reliable and realistic story.)

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120338795#Comment_120338795

It certainly seems a bit messed up that the state is responsible for collection or enforcement of church tithes in what is otherwise a secular country where 42% of the population consider themselves non-religious. I can only imagine the accelerated exodus from the church if the same were to happen here (not that it is remotely likely).

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120339250#Comment_120339250

Like so much else, it's an artefact of history.

Come with me back to the seventeenth century, and the wars of religion, largely fought out in (what is now) Germany. You'll recall from Inter Cert History that these were eventually resolved by the Peace of Westphalia, which (among other things) established the rule that, in each state, (a) the ruler could determine whether the established would be Catholic, Lutheran or Reformed, but (b) other, non-established churches would be permitted to operate. The established church is state-funded, out of tithes. The other churches are not. However churches which enjoy established status in one state can (and do) support their associated, but non-established, churches in other states.

This arrangement lasts until the 19th century when tithes start to be abolished. Established churches are funded instead out of general taxation. Then, in the second half of the nineteenth, all these tiny German states and statelets start to come together to form larger units, in a process which will eventually culminate in the establishment of a unified German Reich in 1870 with a single, centrally operating, income tax. It's anomalous to have different churches receiving taxpayers funds in different parts of the country, so eventually the system gets rationalised into something like today's church tax.

Note that at this point the system looks relatively progressive; at this time lots of countries have taxpayer funding for religion, either via tithes or out of general taxation. Germany is unusual in distributing these to different churches according to their membership, rather than having a single established church that receives all taxpayer funding.

Hitler proposed to abolish the system, but never followed through — other projects acquired a greater priority in his eyes.

After the second world war the Federal Republic did give consideration to abolishing the system, which by then was looking anomalous. But, in the climate of the time, they saw considerable value in having non-state institutions in the public square that carried moral weight as a counterbalance to the moral weight of the state, and they felt this would be maximised if those institutions were well-resourced. So they retained the system and in fact extended it, so that non-religious analogues of churches (like the German Humanist Association) could also receive funding.

Irish history is very different so, yeah, there is no possibility of a similar arrangement here.

As to whether it would, hypothetically, accelerate exodus from the church; quite possibly, but we can't jump to any conclusions. In Iceland, where they have a church tax, fewer than 10% of Icelanders attend church and well under half of weddings are celebrated in church, but something like 90% of people elect to pay the church tax. A possible explanation for this is that people value the social and community role played by the Church of Iceland and are happy to support it for non-religious reasons. Another possible explanation is that people have a religious identity or affiliation which is separate from their participation in worship but which is nevertheless signficant to them — sufficiently significant that they choose to pay the tax. Of course, neither of these things might turn out to be the case in Ireland. I don't think we're going to get to find out.

smacl

Thanks for the historical perspective P. It makes far more sense with the added context.

Hotblack Desiato

Did non-members have to tithe the established (in a particular state/principality) church, as was then the case in Ireland?

I suppose one good thing about a church tax is that it could actually help ensure a greater separation between public funds and church funds. There could be no justification for funding religions indirectly from the public purse if they can already tax their members directly. Whereas here in Ireland we subsidise (mostly, but not exclusively, the RC) church in various ways.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341120#Comment_120341120

only those who are members of a religion have to pay.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341120#Comment_120341120

Worth noting that the German branch of the Catholic church is one of the wealthiest ones, having a net worth of ~ €75bn. See https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20247743.html Just because they're directly state funded in no way implies they don't have their fingers in many other pies ;)

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341345#Comment_120341345

i'm not sure i would describe them as state-funded. the government just collects the tax on their behalf and charges a fee for doing so.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341263#Comment_120341263

I know that, I was referring to the 19th century when different churches were established churches in the various parts of what is now Germany.

Until the Church of Ireland was disestablished, tithes were levied on members and non-members alike.

robindch

[smacl] Worth noting that the German branch of the Catholic church is one of the wealthiest ones, having a net worth of ~€75bn.

Cash which certain individuals weren't afraid to spend on themselves. Anybody remember Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, aka the 'Bishop of Bling' who spent €30 million euro renovation to his palace, including €20,000 on a two-seater bathtub.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/vatican-finds-new-position-for-bishop-of-bling-1.2097430

Hotblack Desiato

I wonder who the bishop was theologically permitted to share the two person bathtub with?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341120#Comment_120341120

Tithes were effectively a tax on land (strictly, a tax on the notional harvest you could supposedly get from the land). If you owned, you paid the tax, regardless of whether you were a member of the established church or not. (Having said that, landowners were, in most places, disproportionately members of the established church.)

When tithes were abolished and the established churches were funded out of general taxation, people paid the same tax regardless of whether they were members of the established church or not. It was only later on that refinements like "opt out" or "direct your tax to the church of your choice" were introduced.

As for the consequences of a church tax, there are a couple that I think are noteworthy.

1. Because German churches get direct subventions from public funds, they are required to be much more transparent in their accounting and reporting than, to take an example entirely at random, Irish churches are. Parish and diocesan accounts are audited and published. (IIRC, that's how the "Bishop of Bling" story mentioned above came to light.)
2. German churches use (and are expected to use) their considerable wealth to do things that, in other countries, are done directly by the state. So a lot of provision of, e.g., nursery schools, retirement homes, convalescent homes and even hospitals (and of course schools) is undertaken by churches. One of the reasons the church tax remains politically acceptable, and has such a high take-up rate, is probably that people have a sense that, by paying the church tax, they are helping to provide these kinds of social/community care. So it may not be just religious faith that leads people to choose to pay the tax, but also a sense of civic solidarity.
3. Because of this, taxpayers who pay the church tax are cross-subsidising social care for those who don't. If the church tax were abolished, either social care would have to be cut or general taxation would have to rise, and the losers would be those who currently don't pay church tax. So this gives them, too, an incentive to support the current system.

Mr. CooL ICE

Not Germany, but I went to the Rock In Vienna festival in 2015. We did our research - saw the festival was on an island on the Danube within the city and a huge shopping mall was a 10 minute walk across a bridge away. Thought it was great, so we decided we'd arrive, set up camp and then go to the mall to buy beer and snacks. Only we didn't do enough research, because it was a protestant (or pentecostal?) holy day and everything was closed. We wandered around for a while and found a bakery that was open and managed to buy some overpriced cans there.

Hotblack Desiato

This is why the backup naggin is always essential.