"Why give money to the Church?" In most of Europe the Church lost title to its old buildings between 1536 and 1905. The answer differs by country, so every church on the shortlist names its seller and says where the money goes.
| Country | Who holds most old churches today | Who is usually selling | Where the money goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | Communes own parish churches built before 1905; the State owns 87 cathedrals | Private owners, religious orders, dioceses (post-1905 buildings), sometimes a commune | Mostly to private sellers or the village |
| England | The Church of England | Church Commissioners; private owners on resale | Church sales: two thirds to the diocese, one third to conservation of other closed churches |
| Scotland | Church of Scotland General Trustees | The Kirk, directly | To the Kirk’s congregations and fabric funds |
| Italy | Dioceses and parishes, the State (Fondo Edifici di Culto), municipalities, private families | Private owners; the State by public tender | Mostly to private sellers or the State |
| Ireland | Representative Church Body (Church of Ireland); Catholic dioceses | The RCB; private owners on resale | RCB sales: 80% held for the parish, 20% to a church fabric fund |
France
France has taken its churches from the Church twice. On 2 November 1789 the National Assembly put all Church property at the disposal of the Nation. Abbeys, priories and chapels were auctioned as biens nationaux to farmers, lawyers and speculators, and thousands have been private ever since. A Cistercian barn that became a hayloft in 1791 is the typical Patrice Besse listing.
Napoleon’s Concordat of 1801 gave parish churches back for worship without returning the deeds. Then the law of 9 December 1905 separated Church and State. Parish churches built before 1905, around 40,000 of them, belong to the commune. The State owns 87 cathedrals. The clergy have free and perpetual use; the mayor pays for the roof. Only churches built after 1905 belong to the dioceses that built them.
So a French church comes to market by one of four routes. A private owner sells a chapel or abbey church that left Church hands in the Revolution. A religious order sells a convent with its chapel. A diocese sells a twentieth-century church. Or a commune formally removes a church from worship (désaffectation, by prefectoral order with the bishop’s consent) and sells it. Patrice Besse, the Paris agency with a section devoted to religious buildings, handles all four.
England, Wales and Scotland
Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries between 1536 and 1541 and sold them to the gentry, which is why England is full of country houses called Something Abbey. Parish churches stayed with the Church of England and still do.
When a parish church closes, the Church Commissioners decide whether it is sold for a new use, handed to the Churches Conservation Trust, or demolished. About 20 close a year. Two thirds of the sale price goes to the diocese. The rest helps fund the Churches Conservation Trust and other closed churches.
An English church bought from the Commissioners therefore does pay the Church of England. The routes that do not are resales of churches already in private hands, estate and private chapels, and gifts to a trust such as the Friends of Friendless Churches. Nonconformist chapels (Methodist, Baptist, Welsh Calvinist) are sold by their own denominations.
Scotland is the biggest sale in Europe right now. The Church of Scotland expects to dispose of 350 to 400 buildings, about 30% of its churches, and lists them on its own website from 20,000 pounds. The proceeds go back to the Kirk.
Italy
Napoleon suppressed the religious orders in the 1800s and unified Italy did it again with the laws of 1866 and 1867, which confiscated the property of monasteries and convents. The churches the State kept are now held by the Fondo Edifici di Culto, an arm of the Interior Ministry. The convents were sold, and many are farms and villas today with a deconsecrated church attached.
Italy also has a class of building that never belonged to the Church at all: the cappella gentilizia, a family chapel built on a noble estate, and the rural oratory. These pass with the land. A church that leaves worship is reduced to “profane but not sordid use” by decree of the bishop, and Italian bishops have published guidelines on acceptable reuse.
Ireland
The medieval churches of Ireland went to the Protestant Church of Ireland at the Reformation. Gladstone disestablished it by the Irish Church Act of 1869. Churches in use were vested in a new trustee, the Representative Church Body, which still sells them when parishes close. Many ruined medieval churches are in the care of the State or the county council as national monuments and are not for sale. Catholic churches, mostly built after 1829, belong to diocesan trusts and rarely reach the market.
Sources
- Vie-publique on the 1905 law and places of worship
- Banque des Territoires on who owns French churches and cathedrals
- Church of England, closed churches and how proceeds are split
- Church Times, May 2026, on Church of Scotland disposals
- Church of Ireland, RCB property presentation 2023
- History Ireland on disestablishment
- University of Milan journal on the Fondo Edifici di Culto
- Crux on the Italian guidelines for deconsecrated churches