About die Kirche

die Kirche

die Kirche is the weekly Protestant newspaper for Berlin, Brandenburg, and the Silesian Upper Lusatia, the territory of the Evangelische Kirche Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz (EKBO). Founded in 1945 in and for Greater Berlin, it was split and renamed along with the divided city, and since 2003 it has again appeared under the unified name Die Kirche as the official Protestant church paper for the reunited church region, completing a historical arc from post-war founding through division to reunification. Published by the Wichern-Verlag in Berlin, it reports weekly on regional and supraregional topics from church, politics, and society, appearing every Sunday for its readers. With a sold circulation of 4,364 copies in the second quarter of 2023, it serves the Protestant community of the capital region with news, commentary, portraits, and cultural coverage, reaching parishes, church institutions, and interested readers across Berlin, Brandenburg, and the Silesian Upper Lusatia.

Overview

die Kirche is a weekly Protestant church newspaper that appears on Sundays. Its coverage area is the EKBO, the regional Protestant church comprising Berlin, Brandenburg, and the Silesian Upper Lusatia. The newspaper reports on news from parishes and the regional church, takes up important topics from church, politics, and society, and gives insight through portraits into how full-time and volunteer church workers build the church. Comments and controversial opinions, reader surveys, and a reader forum provide a church platform for discussion. Questions of faith, culture, and the view of the environment measured against the Gospel form the core of the newspaper.

The newspaper is published by the Wichern-Verlag in Berlin, the easternmost Protestant publishing house in Germany with a full publishing range, under publishing director Elke Rutzenhöfer since 2001. The editor-in-chief is Constance Bürger, serving as Chefin vom Dienst, and the publisher is Bishop Christian Stäblein, with co-publishers Johanna Haberer, Susanne Kahl-Passoth, and Wolf Krötke. The regional theological, cultural, and church topics are handled by Karola Kallweit, Sibylle Sterzik, Constance Bürger, and Joana Lewandowski, supplemented by many freelance authors from the region who contribute local knowledge from across the church territory.

According to IVW figures from the second quarter of 2023, the sold circulation was 4,364 copies and the distributed circulation 4,659 copies. The newspaper's ISSN is 0949-8664. It is a member of the Evangelischer Medienverband and describes itself as a piece of the puzzle in Germany's large press landscape that stands for freedom of opinion in the confessional sphere, a self-understanding that positions the Protestant press as an independent voice within German media.

History

The newspaper was founded in 1945 in and for Greater Berlin, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as the Protestant weekly for the reunited city's church community. Its founding belongs to the wave of new church publications that emerged in the post-war years, when the Protestant churches sought to rebuild their public voice after the Nazi era. After the division of the city, the newspaper was likewise split, and the editions in West Berlin underwent a renaming, appearing as the Berliner Sonntagsblatt and later the Berlin-Brandenburgisches Sonntagsblatt. The division of the newspaper mirrored the division of the church itself into separate eastern and western church administrations, and for four decades the two editions served their respective halves of the divided church region.

With the reunification of the regional churches, the newspaper was also reunited: since 2003 it has again appeared under the common name Die Kirche as the official Protestant church paper for Berlin-Brandenburg and the Silesian Upper Lusatia. The reunification of the newspaper under a single name was a visible sign of the church's own reunification, restoring the unity that the 1945 founding had intended. The Wichern-Verlag, which publishes the newspaper, has a history of its own as the easternmost full-range Protestant publisher in Germany, also publishing the monthly mission paper Frohe Botschaft with a circulation of 40,000 since 1992 and the Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift of Humboldt University since 1984.

Coverage and Content

The newspaper's content is organized around the life of the church in the capital region. It reports on news from parishes and the regional church, takes up important topics from church, politics, and society, and presents portraits of people that show how committed full-time and volunteer workers build the church. Comments and controversial opinions, reader surveys, and the reader forum provide a platform for discussion within the church community, making the newspaper a conversation space for the EKBO's members rather than a one-way information channel.

Questions of faith, culture, and the environment form the core of the newspaper, measured against the Gospel. The EKBO's presentation of the newspaper emphasizes that it takes important topics from church, politics, and society into view and that its cultural coverage and environmental reporting are central, giving the newspaper a scope that extends well beyond internal church affairs into the public debates of the capital region. In a cooperation with the church newspaper editors in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Kiel, Bielefeld, and Speyer, pages are jointly produced and resources shared, giving the newspaper access to supraregional content while keeping its regional focus on Berlin, Brandenburg, and the Silesian Upper Lusatia.

The newspaper's self-description as a piece of the puzzle in Germany's press landscape that stands for freedom of opinion in the confessional sphere reflects its role as an independent Protestant voice in the capital region's media.

Organization and Ownership

die Kirche is published by the Wichern-Verlag in Berlin, under publishing director Elke Rutzenhöfer since 2001. The Wichern-Verlag is the easternmost Protestant publishing house in Germany with a full publishing range, including an integrated agency that takes on design commissions for church and diaconia, executes production contracts for various clients, and offers consulting and production of printed materials for parishes, associations, and organizations, and it publishes a book programme alongside its periodicals.

The newspaper's publisher is Bishop Christian Stäblein of the EKBO, with co-publishers Johanna Haberer, Susanne Kahl-Passoth, and Wolf Krötke, giving the newspaper a direct link to the church leadership alongside its editorial independence. The editor-in-chief is Constance Bürger as Chefin vom Dienst, and the regional editorial team includes Karola Kallweit, Sibylle Sterzik, and Joana Lewandowski, supplemented by freelance authors from the region. The newspaper is a member of the Evangelischer Medienverband, the association of Protestant media, which connects it with the broader landscape of church journalism in Germany.

Digital Presence

die Kirche maintains a full digital presence. Its website, die-kirche.de, hosts the article archive and current content, making eight decades of church journalism searchable. A weekly newsletter points to the current issue and gives insight into selected articles, keeping subscribers connected between Sunday editions. The newspaper is available as an app, Evang. Zeitung die-kirche, for iOS and Android, and as an e-paper, and its content is also available through the evangelische-zeitung.de news portal, giving readers multiple digital access routes to the weekly content.

The cooperation with church newspaper editors in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Kiel, Bielefeld, and Speyer extends into the digital realm, with jointly produced pages and shared resources that allow the regional papers to pool their editorial capacity. Whether the newspaper maintains dedicated social media channels beyond these platforms is not publicly confirmed from the sources consulted, though its app, newsletter, and portal presence cover the main digital channels.