Baptized children remain church members even after their parents leave

Anyone who was baptized as a toddler remains a member of the church even after the parents leave. This was decided by the Berlin Administrative Court and rejected the claim of a 66-year-old against a church tax claim. Accordingly, the church tax is due until a person himself formally leaves the church.

The woman had argued that with the departure of her parents from the Protestant Church in GDR times in the 50s, for them the membership of the religious community was extinct. She was not aware of a membership, she had not remembered the baptism.

A Berlin tax office had demanded from the woman for the years 2012 and 2013 church taxes with separate decisions because she was a church member. She declared that she was not baptized. Her parents also declared her resignation. However, the parish Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt confirmed the baptism in the year 1953. A church exit, however, was not recorded.

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Thereupon, the woman formally declared her resignation and went to court against the tax claim. She accused the Protestant church of being a member of a baptism of infidelity.

SPIEGEL had already reported on the case in July. "I would never have guessed," said the 66-year-old there. "We never went to church, not even at Christmas, and when my parents talked about the church, it's bad." She did not even attend religious education classes at school and, as a teenager, instead received the state Jugendweihe in which she vowed to be loyal to socialism. "And who had the Jugendweihe," said Baumann, "was of course no longer admitted by the churches for confirmation."

The court ruled, however, that she had been a member of the Church through baptism in infancy until she explicitly declared her resignation.