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An evangelical pastor is leaving his parish in Alfeld, Lower Saxony, because of controversial statements about the Holocaust.
A spokesman for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover confirmed the process.
Church spokesman Benjamin Simon-Hinkelmann said that the pastor wrote a Sunday service for local newspapers and put the Holocaust, the millions of times the Nazis murdered Jews in Europe, into perspective.
The "Alfelder Zeitung" and the "Leine-Deister-Zeitung" did not publish the text.
The pastor counted "the genocide of the National Socialists as small", as the "Alfelder Zeitung" wrote.
Instead, the pastor's superiors and church leaders intervened.
For the church, the statements were "clearly not acceptable," the spokesman said.
After a conversation with the superintendent and the regional church, the pastor decided to give up his parish office, the spokesman said.
He should not be used as a parish priest in the future.
In a service law procedure, the church also checks "whether there has been a breach of official duty".
The pastor himself could not be reached for comment.
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