Minor Ascension A holiday? In some Bavarian communities from 2025 no longer

On August 15, 2025, six Bavarian communities are said: feet high instead of work – Assumption Day will be celebrated there as a legal holiday in the future. But from this year there are two counterexamples where things run the other way around: two Upper Franconian places lose the holiday.

The reason for the back and forth is not a mood of heaven, but a consequence of the Census from 2022.

Assumption of the MARIE: When statistics are reducing the holiday

The Upper Franconian communities Seßlach and Marktgorgast meet hard: Himmelfahrt loses the status of the holiday here. The reason for this is a new calculation of the denominational balance of power. According to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, more evangelicals now live in these places Catholic Christians – And that is crucial according to the holiday law.

Because the Assumption is not a national holiday, but only applies in communities with a predominantly Catholic population. And this in turn is determined by comparing the number of members of the Catholic and Protestant churches – and not by denomination -free residents or the total population.

New holiday communities on the Assumption of Mary: from Middle Franconia to Swabia

While residents of Seßlach and Marktgorgast in the future will (have to) work regularly on August 15, six other municipalities will be released in 2025:

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• Markttrodach (Upper Franconia)
• Baiersdorf and Weisendorf (Middle Franconia)
• Schwebheim (Lower Franconia)
• Memmingerberg and Oettingen (Schwaben)

Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) emphasizes in one published press releasethat in the other 2048 municipalities it will remain with the previous regulation.

Holiday regulation in the Assumption of Mary: DGB expresses criticism

The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) Bavaria criticizes the existing handling in Bavaria: “In a modern, diverse society in which fewer and fewer people belong to a church, the question ‘Holidays – yes or no?’ no longer depend on the religious affiliation of individual communities, ”says DGB state chief Bernhard Stiedl.

However, it does not call for a complete abolition for the Free State, but a nationwide holiday on August 15 – regardless of denomination or place of residence. It is unfair that some Have workers free that daywhile others have to work just because they live a few kilometers further.

The Saarland would serve as a model: Mary’s Ascension is a holiday here, although there is also no clear Catholic majority there. The federal state with French embossing dispenses with denomination.