The Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) will promote an international symposium in Brussels on September 22 and 23 to debate the requalification and future use of religious heritage. The forum, with free public entry, aims to explore the potential of churches and other sacred spaces in a changing society, as places of encounter, exchange, and community. The presentation document states that churches can be understood as spaces that extend beyond the familiar categories of home, work, and public space, with the potential to create new forms of community, participation, and belonging.
The event has strategic roots in the European New Bauhaus laboratory, focused on the renovation, transformation, and revitalization of church buildings and religious heritage in the EU, a structure co-led by COMECE since the end of 2025. The congress's conceptual roadmap is also supported by the traveling exhibition "Churches as Rooms and Places – Perspectives for Change," a project developed by the Construction Culture Museum of the German region of North Rhine-Westphalia.
COMECE's Secretary-General, Father Manuel Barrios Prieto, will open the proceedings with a focus on rural religious heritage as a territorial asset and on the contemporary challenges of transforming churches and mosques. The final day of activities concludes with a public assessment of the activities, needs, and challenges related to reinvented churches as anchors for civic engagement for new generations.
