Dresden (dpa/sn) – The measures and tasks to protect against sexualised violence in the Evangelical Church of Saxony are to be coordinated by a specialist department from January 2023. She also works closely with the prevention officers of the church districts, as the president of the synod, Bettina Westfeld, said on Monday at the autumn conference in Dresden. Dealing with and preventing sexualized violence was an important topic of the four-day consultation. Horrible things were not only done to these people in the church in body and soul, but many were also deprived of the opportunity to live their Christian faith.
According to Westfeld, the framework protection program should prevent something like this from happening again. Every church congregation has to deal with what needs to be done about it. The members of the synod warned that this alertness should not be allowed to disappear again into oblivion. According to the regional church office, 48 cases have been discussed by the independent commission since November 2020, including new ones, said Westfeld. This shows how important the point of contact and openness are. The signal goes from the synod to everyone to whom “this has happened in church or diakonia to really get in touch”.
The synod passed the budget of the regional church for 2023. It has a total volume of 245 million euros, 11 million euros more than 2022. It is assumed that 133 million euros will come from church taxes and 51 million euros from the financial equalization of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and 24 .5 million euros from the state. At the end of the autumn conference, the church parliament called for prayer for an early end to the war, for peace in Ukraine and for continued support for those affected in the region and for refugees.
