Germany: BAG Voids Dismissals Over a Catholic Church Exit

Germany's Federal Labour Court ruled on 5 November 2026 that a Catholic association could not lawfully dismiss a pregnancy counsellor for formally leaving the church, because the same employer gave the same counselling work to Protestant staff (BAG, 2 AZR 196/22).

Information last verified on November 9, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Scope. This article covers German federal labour and anti-discrimination law as applied by the Bundesarbeitsgericht in 2 AZR 196/22. Dismissal law in Germany is federal and uniform, so there is no separate rule by Land. It does not cover civil servants (Beamte), it does not address the canon-law consequences of leaving a church, and it is not a guide to any individual dismissal. For the general framework, see our overview of employment law in Germany.

What Happened

The claimant had worked for the defendant since 2006. The defendant is a women's and specialist association within the Catholic Church in Germany that helps children, young people, women and their families in difficult circumstances, and its work includes counselling pregnant women. She was engaged in that pregnancy counselling service as a social pedagogue.

She was on parental leave from 11 June 2013 to 31 May 2019. In October 2013 she declared her Kirchenaustritt, her formal departure from the Catholic Church, before the competent state authority. The employer learned of it in December 2013, because the tax administration passes changed church-tax characteristics to the employer.

Her stated reason was financial rather than doctrinal. She said the diocese levied a special church levy, the Kirchgeld, on people married to a well-earning spouse of no faith or another faith, and that her own Christian values had not changed.

Talks in 2018 and 2019 aimed at getting her to rejoin the Catholic Church produced no result. After her parental leave ended, the employer dismissed her by letter of 1 June 2019: extraordinarily and without notice, and in the alternative ordinarily with effect from 31 December 2019.

The employer relied on the Grundordnung des kirchlichen Dienstes im Rahmen kirchlicher Arbeitsverhältnisse, the basic regulations for church employment, in the 2015 version adopted by the general assembly of the Association of German Dioceses. Article 5(2) of that text treats leaving the Catholic Church as a serious breach of loyalty for Catholic staff.

The employer's position was that the departure destroyed its confidence that she would follow Catholic teaching in her counselling work, and that in any event any disadvantage was justified under section 9(1) and (2) AGG.

At the moment of dismissal the counselling service employed six women. Four belonged to the Catholic Church and two belonged to the Protestant (evangelical) church.

The lower courts and the money

The Arbeitsgericht Wiesbaden, the local labour court, upheld the claim on 10 June 2020 (2 Ca 288/19). She had sought compensation of at least €20,000 for religious discrimination; the court awarded €2,314.22, one gross monthly salary, so the compensation claim succeeded only in part.

The Hessisches Landesarbeitsgericht dismissed both parties' appeals on 1 March 2022 (8 Sa 1092/20), leaving in place the finding that the dismissals were invalid, the compensation of €2,314.22, and back pay for default of acceptance (Annahmeverzugsvergütung) for June 2019 to May 2020.

The employer's appeal on points of law, the Revision, pursued full dismissal of the claim. The Bundesarbeitsgericht's published hearing result records that the Revision against the Hessian court's judgment of 1 March 2022 was dismissed at the employer's cost. The press release adds that the payment claims she had asserted are therefore also owed to her.

The European detour

The Second Senate did not decide the case in 2024. It stayed the Revision and asked the Court of Justice of the European Union, under Article 267 TFEU, whether EU law permits a national rule under which a religiously-grounded organisation may require staff not to leave a particular church, or may make continued employment conditional on rejoining, when it does not otherwise require membership of that church and the employee does not act publicly against the church. A second question asked what further requirements would govern the justification of such a difference in treatment if the first were answered yes. Both questions were put in the light of Articles 10(1) and 21(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (BAG, order of 1 February 2024, 2 AZR 196/22 (A)).

According to the press release, the Court of Justice answered those questions by judgment of 17 March 2026 in Case C-258/24, Katholische Schwangerschaftsberatung. We were unable to open the CJEU judgment or Directive 2000/78/EC from this environment, so we report the European ruling only as the Bundesarbeitsgericht characterises it and we quote neither.

The holding

The press release opens with the proposition the court decided, and that sentence carries its own condition.

Die Kündigung eines Arbeitsverhältnisses wegen des von einer Arbeitnehmerin gegenüber der zuständigen staatlichen Stelle erklärten, im Übrigen nicht publik gemachten Kirchenaustritts benachteiligt diese in unzulässiger Weise wegen ihrer Religion, wenn ihr kirchlicher Arbeitgeber mit den gleichen Aufgaben auch Personen beschäftigt, die nicht Mitglied dieser Kirche sind.

Source: Bundesarbeitsgericht, Pressemitteilung Nr. 38/26 of 5 November 2026, opening sentence. In translation: the dismissal of an employment relationship because of a church departure that an employee declared to the competent state authority and otherwise did not make public disadvantages her impermissibly on grounds of her religion, where her church employer also employs persons who are not members of that church on the same duties.

The Senate gave the extraordinary dismissal a short answer: it fails because the employer did not keep to the two-week declaration period in section 626(2) BGB. The press release presents that failure as enough on its own to defeat the dismissal without notice.

It then held that the requirements the employer had set, and on whose breach it founded both dismissals, disadvantaged the claimant directly on grounds of religion within sections 1, 3(1) and 7 AGG, without justification under section 9(1) alternative 2 or section 9(2) AGG. The requirement imposed on Catholic staff not to leave the church, or to rejoin after leaving, was not essential by the nature of her work or the circumstances of its exercise, measured against the employer's own self-understanding.

Um die geschuldeten Aufgaben als Sozialpädagogin erfüllen zu können, muss die Klägerin nicht Mitglied der katholischen Kirche sein.

Source: Bundesarbeitsgericht, Pressemitteilung Nr. 38/26 of 5 November 2026, in the passage setting out the holding. In translation: to be able to perform the duties owed as a social pedagogue, the claimant does not have to be a member of the Catholic Church.

The court drew that conclusion from the employer's own staffing: at the time of the dismissal it was entrusting pregnancy counselling to non-Catholic employees. For the same reason, a departure declared to the competent authority and otherwise not publicised was not a breach of loyalty under section 9(2) AGG capable of justifying the disadvantage. Leaving the church does not by itself show that she would stop delivering counselling in the manner the employer required.

A note appended to the press release records that in a second case heard by the Second Senate the same day, 2 AZR 34/25, concerning the dismissal of a part-time choir director who had left the Catholic Church, the parties settled. That case therefore produced no ruling.

What the Law Actually Says

Two separate bodies of German federal law decided this case, and they are worth keeping apart.

The first is the Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG), the General Equal Treatment Act. Section 1 names religion among the grounds whose disadvantage the Act exists to prevent or eliminate. Section 3(1) defines direct disadvantage as less favourable treatment on such a ground than another person in a comparable situation receives, has received or would receive. Section 7(1) prohibits disadvantaging employees on a ground named in section 1, and section 7(3) classes such conduct by an employer as a breach of contractual duty.

Section 9 AGG is the church-employer provision and it was the battleground. Section 9(1) permits different treatment on grounds of religion in employment by religious communities, by institutions assigned to them whatever their legal form, and by associations devoted to the communal practice of a religion, where a particular religion constitutes a justified occupational requirement. It offers two routes: having regard to the self-understanding of the community in light of its right of self-determination, or according to the nature of the activity. The press release records that the Senate examined, and rejected, the second of those. Section 9(2) separately preserves the right of such employers to require loyal and sincere conduct from their staff in the sense of their respective self-understanding.

Both provisions implement Article 4(2) of Directive 2000/78/EC, as the Second Senate itself explained in the 2024 referral, which distinguishes a genuine occupational requirement in the first subparagraph from loyalty requirements in the second. The Senate quoted the Directive's standard for the first route as a wesentliche, rechtmäßige und gerechtfertigte berufliche Anforderung, an essential, legitimate and justified occupational requirement.

The second body of law is ordinary dismissal law. Section 626(1) BGB allows either party to terminate a service relationship without notice for good cause where the facts make continuation unreasonable on an assessment of all the circumstances. Section 626(2) BGB then imposes a hard procedural limit: the dismissal may be given only within two weeks, and the period starts when the person entitled to dismiss learns of the facts decisive for the dismissal.

That is why the chronology matters. The employer learned of the departure in December 2013 and wrote the dismissal letter on 1 June 2019. The press release states only that the two-week period was not kept; it does not set out how the Senate calculated it, and the written reasons have not yet been published.

Two practical consequences follow for anyone reading this alongside our standing coverage. The grounds an employer may use, the notice position and the formal requirements are explained in our page on dismissal by the employer, and a dismissal is challenged in Germany by filing a Kündigungsschutzklage, a dismissal protection action, at the competent Arbeitsgericht under section 4 KSchG. Where an employment relationship ends by agreement rather than by dismissal, the separate rules on a negotiated exit apply instead, and those agreements are not governed by the analysis above.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The most important thing to understand about this ruling is how narrow its reported basis is. The court did not say that a Catholic employer may never require Catholic membership. Section 9(1) AGG remains on the statute book and still permits a genuine religious occupational requirement. What the court rejected was a particular and asymmetric demand.

That asymmetry is set out plainly in the Senate's own 2024 referral. The employer did not make its jobs conditional on belonging to any particular church at all; it required only that Catholic staff not have left.

Er verlangt nicht, dass die Beschäftigten der katholischen Kirche angehören müssen.

Source: Bundesarbeitsgericht, order of 1 February 2024, 2 AZR 196/22 (A), at Rn. 33. In translation: it does not require that the employees belong to the Catholic Church.

So the requirement did not describe what the job needed. It attached to one group of employees because of their religious history, while colleagues doing identical counselling work were exempt from it. Measured against the Directive's test, which asks about the nature of the activity and the circumstances of its exercise, a requirement that the employer itself did not apply to two of the six counsellors is difficult to present as essential to the activity. The court treated the employer's own staffing as evidence of what the role actually demanded.

That is where the line now sits, as the court drew it. The relevant comparison is internal. An employer whose role genuinely is staffed only by members of its church, and who can point to verifiable facts rather than to the bare fact of departure, is in a materially different evidential position from this employer. In the 2024 referral the Senate had already said that the employer must plead verifiable facts raising doubts that the employee is still willing or able to meet the occupational requirements, rather than asserting a loss of confidence from the departure alone.

The section 626(2) BGB point deserves separate attention precisely because it is mundane. It involves no church autonomy, no Charter of Fundamental Rights, and no referral to Luxembourg. It is a two-week clock that starts when the employer knows the decisive facts, and on the reported facts the employer knew in December 2013 and wrote in June 2019. A dismissal without notice can be defeated by that clock whatever the merits of the underlying complaint.

It also explains why the European question still had to be answered. Section 626(2) BGB disposes only of the dismissal without notice. The alternative dismissal with notice and the discrimination compensation claim both survived it, and those turned on the AGG and on Directive 2000/78/EC. A procedural win on one dismissal does not resolve the other.

Finally, a caution about the record. A Bundesarbeitsgericht press release precedes the written reasons by weeks or months, and the reasons routinely refine the holding, narrow it to the facts, or add conditions the release omits. Everything above is drawn from the press release, the official hearing result, the published docket report and the 2024 referral order. We are not predicting what the reasons will say, and we will update this page when they are published.

How This Affects You

A great deal of German social infrastructure is run under Catholic and Protestant auspices: hospitals, schools, kindergartens, care homes and counselling services like the one in this case. Readers employed in that sector should keep three general points in view.

First, the AGG applies to church employment. As the Second Senate set out in its 2024 referral, summarising the Federal Constitutional Court, where churches use private autonomy to create employment relationships, state labour law applies to them, without that ending their character as the church's own affairs (BVerfG 22 October 2014, 2 BvR 661/12). In this case the Bundesarbeitsgericht reviewed the employer's requirements against sections 1, 3(1), 7 and 9 AGG rather than deferring to them.

Second, a contractual reference to the Grundordnung does not settle the question. The employer here had the Grundordnung incorporated into the contract, and Article 5(2) of it classifies leaving the Catholic Church as a serious breach of loyalty. That classification did not end the analysis, because section 9 AGG is read in conformity with EU law and is subject to judicial control.

Third, deadlines do real work here. Under section 4 KSchG an employee who wants to argue that a dismissal is socially unjustified or legally ineffective on other grounds must bring an action at the Arbeitsgericht within three weeks of receiving the written dismissal, subject to the statutory exception where the dismissal needs an authority's approval. Section 626(2) BGB separately limits the employer to two weeks. Nothing in this ruling changes either period.

None of this tells any individual reader what their own dismissal is worth. Outcomes in this area depend on the particular role, the employer's actual staffing, what the employer pleaded and when it acted.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. It covers German federal labour and anti-discrimination law and reflects sources verified on November 9, 2026. Laws change and this story is developing; consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Related articles

• Employment law in Germany: the overall framework
• When an employer can end a contract in Germany
• Challenging a dismissal with a Kündigungsschutzklage
• Ending employment by agreement instead of dismissal

Last updated: 2026-11-09. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-11-09.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the Bundesarbeitsgericht decide on 5 November 2026?

In 2 AZR 196/22 the Second Senate dismissed a Catholic employer's appeal and held both dismissals of a pregnancy counsellor invalid. The dismissal without notice failed on the two-week period in section 626(2) BGB, and the requirement that Catholic staff not leave the church was unjustified direct religious discrimination under the AGG (BAG, Pressemitteilung Nr. 38/26).

Can a church employer in Germany still require employees to belong to its church?

Section 9(1) AGG still allows a justified religious occupational requirement, so the provision was not struck down. On the facts reported in 2 AZR 196/22 the requirement failed because the employer gave the identical counselling role to Protestant staff, which showed that Catholic membership was not essential to that work.

Why did the extraordinary dismissal fail on section 626(2) BGB?

Section 626(2) BGB allows a dismissal without notice only within two weeks, running from when the person entitled to dismiss learns the decisive facts. The employer learned of the church departure in December 2013 and dismissed by letter of 1 June 2019. The press release states only that the period was not kept and does not give the calculation.

What is a Kirchenaustritt?

A Kirchenaustritt is a declaration made to the competent state authority that formally ends state-registered church membership, which also ends the obligation to pay church tax. As the Bundesarbeitsgericht explained in its 2024 referral order, the employer typically learns of it only because the tax administration passes on the changed church-tax characteristics.

Does this ruling apply to Caritas and Diakonie employers?

The judgment concerns one Catholic association's pregnancy counselling service, so it decides those facts rather than any other employer's. Section 9 AGG applies on its terms to religious communities, to institutions assigned to them whatever their legal form, and to associations devoted to the communal practice of a religion, which is the category Catholic and Protestant welfare employers fall into.

How much compensation was awarded?

The claimant sought at least €20,000. The Arbeitsgericht Wiesbaden awarded €2,314.22, one gross monthly salary, plus back pay for June 2019 to May 2020. The Hessisches Landesarbeitsgericht dismissed both parties' appeals, and the Bundesarbeitsgericht dismissed the employer's Revision at its cost, so that award stands.

What did the Court of Justice of the European Union decide in Case C-258/24?

The Bundesarbeitsgericht referred questions on Directive 2000/78/EC on 1 February 2024 and states that the Court of Justice answered them by judgment of 17 March 2026 in Case C-258/24. We could not open that judgment or the Directive from our environment, so we report the answer only as the German court characterises it.

Are the full written reasons available?

Not as of 9 November 2026. The Bundesarbeitsgericht had published the press release (Nr. 38/26) and the official hearing result recording that the Revision was dismissed at the employer's cost, but no Volltext of the 5 November 2026 judgment appeared in its decision database. The reasons can refine the holding.