The project to merge the twelve Protestant Reformed parishes in Bern into a single parish was launched back in 2017. The new organisational regulations and the merger agreement were completed in spring 2024. These will now be submitted to the separate parishes for a public vote on the merger.

What is the issue at hand?

There are twelve different Protestant Reformed parishes in the city of Bern. These parishes fulfil their church duties independently. In addition to these twelve parishes, however, there is also the overall parish, which collects taxes for these twelve parishes and is the owner of the church's assets (i.e. the churches, vicarages, parish buildings, etc.). The twelve parishes receive their financial resources and facilities from the overall parish.

Why a merger?

The Protestant Reformed parishes are public corporations that must fulfil certain legal requirements (e.g. data protection or financial budget). As the number of members decreases, it is becoming increasingly difficult to fulfil these legal requirements due to a lack of staff.

Furthermore, although the individual parishes are responsible for the content of the church's tasks, the financial responsibility lies with the parish as a whole. The parishes are therefore dependent on the overall parish to finance their projects. This division of competences is cumbersome and leads to a lot of administrative work.

After all, life today is no longer limited to the local neighbourhood. The individual parishes, which are organised at district level, therefore do not meet the city-wide ecclesiastical needs of their members. At the moment, there is no institution responsible for city-wide projects. 

What will change with the merger?

The parish of Bern that will be created by the merger will centralise administration (i.e. personnel management, data protection supervision, financial budget, etc.). In addition, there will no longer be any limits to city-wide activities.

Subsidiary to the parish of Bern, the so-called church districts will be responsible for church life at neighbourhood level. These are organisational units of the new parish that are to carry out those tasks for which it makes no sense to regulate them at parish level.

However, the merger and the associated centralisation are also accompanied by a loss of parish autonomy. The danger here is that the church will be less able to fulfil the needs of the population despite the church districts. In addition, the small church council of the overall church congregation criticised the fact that the Protestant Reformed Church could not afford the division that would arise if individual congregations decided not to join the merger. 

The members of the individual parishes now have until May 2025 to vote on the merger. If more than three parishes vote against, the merger will not take place.