Decommissioning and reusing churches

dismission

In the European Year of Cultural Heritage, the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Pontifical Council for Culture, in collaboration with the National Office for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage and Worship Building of the Italian Episcopal Conference and the Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage of the Church of the Pontifical Gregorian University, convened a Conference in Rome on 29-30 November 2018, with two current and widely discussed topics: the decommissioning of churches and the integrated management of cultural heritage.

Focusing attention on the phenomenon of the new use of former places of worship is part of the issue of integrated management of the Church's cultural assets. A large proportion of the problem is transversal and raises awareness not only among Christian communities, but also among public opinion, by virtue of the symbolic and representative value of churches in the urban fabric and landscape.

The Acts published by the Roman publishing house Artemide are available at this link.

We provide here the index, extracts of the general introduction and the guidelines adopted by the delegates of the episcopal conferences.

Conference Webpage