522,821 German Catholics left the Church in 2022, the German bishops’ conference announced on June 28–up from 359,338 in 2021, 221,390 in 2020, and 272,771 in 2019.
There are 20,937,590 Catho-lics in Germany, nearly one-quarter of the nation’s population. With the loosening of pandemic restrictions, Sunday Mass attendance increased from 4.3% in 2021 to 5.7% and 2022, according to the bishops’ annual statistical report. Mass attendance was highest in the Diocese of Görlitz (13.1%) and lowest in the Diocese of Trier (3.8%).
There were 155,173 baptisms, 162,506 first Communions, 110,942 confirmations, 35,467 weddings, and 240,144 burials in 2022.
Only 45 men were ordained to the priesthood in 2022: 33 men for Germany’s 27 dioceses, and 12 men for religious orders. The numbers of parishes declined from 9,790 in 2021 to 9,624 in 2022, as did the number of priests (12,280 to 11,987) and permanent deacons (3,253 to 3,184).
1,447 adults entered the Church in 2022 (down slightly from 1,465 in 2021), and 3,753 Catholics who had left the Church returned.

A leading Nigerian human rights organization has published a report claiming that largely Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed about 700 Christians in May as “farewell gifts” to former President Muhamadu Buhari.
Buhari handed over power to new President Bola Tinubu on May 29, but the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law in a June 12 report said Fulani herdsmen had killed hundreds of Christians as a way of bidding farewell to a president accused of using his 2015-2023 tenure to foster an anti-Christian, pro-Muslim agenda in Africa’s most populous state.
“The Nigerian radical Islamic leaders who marked the end of their civilian office tenures on 29th May 2023 were wished ‘farewell’ by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen, who marked the end of their office tenures by slaughtering not less than 700 defenseless Christians in May 2023 (month of handover),” states the report, compiled by Emeka Umeagbalasi, a Catholic human rights activist and chairman of the organization.
The report, a copy of which was sent to Crux, offers details of alleged Christian killings in several states, noting that “Plateau [state]‘donated’ 350 Christian lives, Benue 190, Kaduna 100, Nasarawa 62, Niger 50, Taraba 40, Borno/Yobe 40, etc.”
“Not less than 1,100 defenseless Christians were hacked to death by Nigerian Government backed Islamic Jihadists in the past 60 days, between 12th April and 12th June 2023,” the report claims, noting that total works out to “a daily average of 17 Christian deaths.”
The report also asserts that 2,150 Christians “have been slaughtered by non-state actors/Nigerian Government backed Islamic Jihadists in the past 160 days, 1st Jan to 12th June 2023. Over 1,400 others were abducted, out of which 10 percent, or 140, may be incapable of returning to their families alive.”
The report claims that 100 churches were razed or destroyed by Islamic Jihadists in the past sixty days, between April 12 and June 12, with 20 pastors attacked.
The new report confirms the trends in an April 10 document which claimed that at least 53,350 Christians have been slaughtered since a 2009 Islamic uprising, with 18,100 churches and 2,200 schools wantonly burned down.

More than half of the global population lives in a country in which state or non-state actors actively persecute people for their religious beliefs, according to the 2023 Religious Freedom in the World report.
The report was released on the first day of Religious Freedom Week, in which the U.S. Catholic bishops have invited Catholics to pray for greater religious liberty both in the U.S. and around the world from June 22–29.
Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity, published the report, which put 28 countries in the “red” category for religious freedom, which denotes religious persecution. Those countries are home to more than 4 billion people and make up about 51.6% of the global population.
The red category includes the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, which the report found to be among the worst religious persecutors. All but one of the countries are in either Africa or Asia. Some of the offenders include Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea.
Nicaragua, which ranked in the less severe “orange” category in the 2021 report, has since moved into the “red” category in the 2023 ranking.

This was caused primarily by President Daniel Ortega’s persecution of Catholic clergy and religious orders as a means to consolidate power and silence dissent.

In a decision seen as an act of defiance towards the Russian Orthodox Church, which also has the effect of promoting closer ties with Roman Catholics and other Western branches of Christianity, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has decided to move Christmas to Dec. 25.
Traditionally, Ukrainian Christians, the bulk of whom are Orthodox, have celebrated Christmas on Jan. 7, along with other predominantly Orthodox nations, including Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February of last year.
On May 24, the Council of Bishops of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine voted nearly unanimously to switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as regards most major feasts, except for Easter and a handful of other feast days, such as the feast of the Trinity.
In a statement following the Council’s decision, Metropolitan Epiphany, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, said the decision “is not an easy one, we have been coming to it for a long time, gradually, step by step, and we are making it carefully.”
However, Epiphany said the decision was “as necessary as the decision to introduce the Ukrainian language in worship instead of the traditional Slavic language, to introduce an autocephalous structure of the Church’s life instead of centuries of subordination.”

What first comes into your mind when you see the word “Iran” in the headlines?
Some of us immediately reflect on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s relentless efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, while their go-vernment-sponsored mobs chant, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” For others, it’s Iran’s relentless military aggression in the Middle East and assassination squads else-where. Meanwhile, those of us who focus on international religious freedom recall that year after year, Iran is listed as one of the 10 worst persecutors of Christians in the world.
But there is another story that isn’t widely reported in our American media. Amazingly, there’s an explosive number of conversions to Christianity taking place in Iran.
I first became aware of this surprisingly good news when I lived in Israel – it was talked about among groups who were focused on Middle East evangelism. Then after I returned to the U.S., I read an unexpected report by Daniel Pipes, a Jewish researcher and author and friend of mine who wrote about it for Newsweek:
“Something religiously astonishing is taking place in Iran, where an Islamist government has ruled since 1979: Christianity is flourishing. The implications are potentially profound.
“Consider some testimonials: David Yeghnazar of Elam Ministries stated in 2018 that ‘Iranians have become the most open people to the gospel.’ The Christian Broad-casting Network found, also in 2018, that ‘Christianity is growing faster in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in any other country.’
“This trend results from the extreme form of Shi’ite Islam imposed by the theocratic regime. An Iranian church leader explained in 2019: ‘What if I told you the mosques are empty inside Iran? What if I told you no one follows Islam inside of Iran? …What if I told you the best evangelist for Jesus was the Ayatollah Khomeini [founder of the Islamic Republic]?”’