【Text/Observer Network Columnist Miao Rourou】
In recent years, Chinese have been increasingly willing to travel at home and abroad, and in various domestic tourist attractions, temples account for a large proportion, and churches around Europe are almost must-visit attractions. Visiting more, it is inevitable to wonder: why do domestic temples charge entrance fees, and the amount is not cheap, while European churches do not charge tickets?
There is a factor that is crucial: after the founding of New China, it has undergone a series of very thorough social transformations, from ideology and culture to the land and commercial system, while other parts of the world basically do not have this process, so Western churches and churches have their own huge and stable financial resources, while domestic religious temples did not have this condition before the reform and opening up; At the same time, the sanctity of religion was largely eliminated in China, and pragmatism was very thoroughly pursued from temples to believers.
Since Christianity was established as the state religion by the Roman Emperor in 392 AD, it has developed rapidly, gaining supremacy over more than a thousand years, and even surpassing the royal powers for a long time to become the highest authority in Europe. Along with power comes great wealth. Today, however, the amount of property of the churches in various countries is not transparent, neither taxation is reported nor is it publicly paid, which is extremely vague and can only be guessed through various pieces of information.
There are roughly three sources of income for the church:
Tithes and tithes evolve from church taxes
The legal basis for tithe comes from the Bible. In The Fourteenth Chapter of Genesis of the Old Testament, it is recorded that the ancestor of the Israelites, Abraham, returned from defeating Gedor and the prince who was allied with him, and was congratulated by The King of Jerusalem and priest of God, Mokisser, "and Abraham gave one-tenth of his income to Mokissard." Later, 1/10 of his income was dedicated to God as a sign of piety, and gradually became the official law of the Catholic Church. As ecclesiastical power dominated Europe, "tithes" also became mandatory taxes imposed by the church.
After the Industrial Revolution, various social revolutions arose in various countries of the world, and many countries abolished tithes. However, some European countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland still retain church taxes, and most people continue to pay them, such as 80% of Danes and 68% of Swedes still pay for the church every year. In 2011, the church's tax revenues in Germany's largest archdiocese of Cologne exceeded €500 million. In 2019, the church tax brought 6.76 billion euros to German bishops.
Even though many people today claim to be no longer religious or atheists, they still haven't stopped paying taxes. Some people are troublesome because of formalities, but more because it has become a traditional custom for Europeans to donate money to the church. According to the Pew Center, 22 percent of church tax payers in Denmark are non-religious, compared to 32 percent in Sweden.
2. Donations from believers
In order to amass wealth, the Holy See in the Middle Ages introduced the famous indulgence voucher, preaching that as long as there is a voucher, sins are written off, and after death, you can directly ascend to heaven, claiming that "when the silver money donated for a certain alchemist is thrown into the donation box and makes a jingle, he will come out of purgatory." Price list of indulgences from the time of Pope Benedict XII: "Murder, 8 gold coins; Murder of parents and siblings, 6 gold coins; Adultery in the church, 6 gold coins; Forged documents, 6 gold coins. The price of the German indulgence was "sodomy, 12 Dugat; Blasphemy sin, 7 Dugat; Witchcraft, 6 Dugat; Kill the Father, 4 Dugat. "The smaller the sin, the lower the price, and the lightest is only 1/4 of the florin."
Due to the financial deficit caused by the corruption of the Holy See, in order to increase revenue, it was decided from the beginning to sell the indulgences every 100 years, to 1400 to 50 years, in 1450 to every 25 years, in 1501 it was announced that the indulgences would be sold every 5 years, and issued almost every year after 1506. The believers found such a simple and convenient way to wash away sins and get rid of the burden of the soul, and naturally paid so much money that when they were sold once, they had to use a rake to collect a mountain of coins.
In modern times, when indulgences could not be sold, the church actively encouraged and induced believers to donate. According to Georgetown University, Catholics donate an average of $10 a week to churches. There are 85 million believers in North America, meaning the church earns about $850 million a week. Members of the "Church of Christ" donate $963.33 per year; Presbyterians donate $2,088.23 per year; and Southern Baptists donate $625.25 per capita. Among the 63 denominations surveyed, the annual per capita donation of believers is $757.90.
According to Radio France Internationale in 2011, the French Catholic Church has more than 3,000 churches built after 1905, as well as nearly 50,000 other buildings, with assets worth 700 million euros at disposal each year.
The French church is funded mainly by faithful consecration, Mass income, bequest and operating income (income from the sale of holy relics, tourist tickets and other services, etc.), financial assistance from the government, and tax reductions. In 2004, supporters brought 195 million euros to the diocese, accounting for about one-third of the total budget. In 2016, the Church in France received €256.6 million from its faithful, or €225 per capita; €149.2 million from daily Mass, €83.7 million from sacraments (baptisms, marriages) and funerals, €0.483 million from specific Masses, €0.983 million from inheritances, and some small incomes for a total of around €640 million for the whole year. In addition, because there is no fixed income such as church tax, the French church is slightly more shabby than the German church, for example, the average monthly income of a German pastor is about 4,000 euros, while the French priest is only about 1,000 euros.
3. The operating income of the Church
In the long period of monopoly rule, the church accumulated a huge amount of capital. The Catholic Church was the largest feudal lord in medieval Western Europe, establishing a huge financial system, and Rome was the church's gold-sucking center, receiving a steady stream of wealth from all over the world.
From the 19th century onwards, the Holy See and the Catholic Churches of Europe actively participated in private business operations, investing their income in the operation of enterprises, commerce and finance, and obtaining huge profits. The church has entered various industries, and the scale of investment in various countries has reached tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars, and such income has become the main body of the church's income. Mineral water like the Mineral Water Adelholzener Alpenquellen of Bavaria, Germany, is the property of the Monks of Charity Monastery, located on a mountain spring, selling more than 580 million bottles a year and making a considerable profit.
Much of the wealth of Germany's richest archdiocese of Cologne comes from investments in real estate funds, financial securities and stock exchange stocks, and its property is disclosed to be worth €3.35 billion, consisting of real estate (about €612 million), treasury funds (€240 million) and other assets. In addition to the church tax in Germany, schools, hospitals and nursing homes run by religious groups can also receive financial support from the government, and government subsidies, tax-free income, and contributions from parishioners account for about 40% of the total income of the church, and the other 60% is the church tax.
The Church of England manages £79 billion (about 700 billion yuan) in assets with a return on investment of 17.1%. The church's annual revenue is £7.5 billion (of which $6 billion comes from its own investment fund earnings), a little more than Three times the income of McDonald's and Starbucks in the UK. Suburban residents contribute around £5-7 million a year, with a small share coming from wedding and funeral expenses.
The rituals and proceeds from the annual sale of religious documents by the Russian Orthodox Church are about 6 billion rubles, and in 2016 state subsidies were distributed to it about 1 billion rubles.
Let's take a look at the wealth of the Vatican Holy See, the center of Christian power. The Vatican covers an area of 0.49 square kilometers, with a permanent population of only more than 800 people, and its fiscal revenue is mainly composed of tourism, contributions to the Pope, donations to believers, real estate rentals, and investment income.
The assets of the Holy See are divided into three parts:
1. The Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute of Religious Affairs, is a private company founded in 1942 and is primarily responsible for the financial affairs of the Vatican, directly responsible to the Pope. It does business with more than 200 banks around the world, has a distribution network in more than 100 countries, has about 15,000 customers, manages about 33,000 accounts, has $764 million in equity, holds more than $20 million worth of gold reserves at the Federal Reserve, has a liquidity coverage ratio of 443%, a return on net assets of 6%, a return on total assets of 1.3%, and a core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio of 82.4%.
The tower-like building on the right is where the Vatican Bank is located
In 2019, the total assets of the Holy See were 5.1 billion euros, of which 3.4 billion euros were related to asset management and custody. Net assets excluding liabilities amounted to €630 million and net profit to €38 million, up 117 percent from €17.5 million in 2018, with a profit of €12.6 million (a loss of 3 million in 2018) and an investment fund of $3.2 million.
In 2015, the American writer Gerald Perthner published God's Banker: A History of Vatican Money and Power, the most exhaustive investigative work on the Vatican Bank to date, and as soon as it came out, it immediately caused a huge response in English-speaking countries. The New York Times considered the book "an exhaustive history of the holy see's financial mechanisms, and Perthner weaves an extraordinary and complex story of intrigue, corruption, and organized crime." ”
2- The Papal Council of the Vatican, which operates Vatican radio, railways, postal telecommunications and other institutions. The Vatican already had a monopoly on Rome's industries of running water, electricity, gas, transportation, flour and construction. The Holy See has tens of billions of dollars in assets and real estate in Italy, and its wealth in Rome accounts for a quarter of the total wealth of the region, occupying an important economic position.
3. The Pope's Office of Assets in Rome, with a net worth of nearly US$2 billion and more than 5,000 properties around the world, excluding the country's embassies around the world; In Italy alone, 4,051 properties are owned (40% as institutions such as schools, hospitals and monasteries, and 14% are rented out to church staff at market or low prices), and 1,120 properties are held worldwide. The Asset Management Office also has the nature of an investment firm, with approximately US$600 million in stocks, bonds and real estate in many countries in North America and Europe, as well as more than US$10 billion in gold reserves.
In short, despite the changes in modern society, the European and American churches still maintain huge assets. Many possessions are immeasurable, uncountable, or unpublished, so in fact the wealth of the church is unclear.
China's religious circles underwent large-scale transformation after the founding of the People's Republic of China, which is very different from the European and American churches.
First, for historical reasons, China's religions did not derive from the huge wealth accumulated by history.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the state implemented land reform, all land was taken into the state, temples, Taoist temples and other religious institutions did not have land and other private real estate resources, only owned the land that the institutions occupied and used daily, etc., for example, the Shaolin Temple has only been hospitalized for more than 60 acres of land, which is only enough to maintain life.
About thirty years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the economic public ownership system was implemented, and the temples and Taoist temples also lost their operating income, basically relying on government appropriations, worship of believers and a small amount of other income. Before the reform and opening up, the whole of China was relatively poor, and religious institutions could not have more than average wealth.
Second, China is an atheist country with an extremely small proportion of believers, which is the key basis for comparing the religious issues in China and other countries today.
According to a sample survey in early 2012 by the Gallup International Survey Consortium's Global Religious Beliefs and Atheism Index, 14 percent of people in China claimed to be religious, 30 percent described themselves not as religious, 47 percent described themselves as staunch atheists, and 9 percent did not answer. In a sample survey at the end of 2014, only 7 percent described themselves as religious and 61 percent described themselves as staunch atheists. In addition, according to the data of the 2012 "China Household Tracking Survey" of the China Social Science Survey Center of Peking University and the 2011 "China Comprehensive Social Survey" of Chinese Min University, only about 10% of China's religious population is involved. At the same time, even fewer people believe in the importance of religion in life, at about 3 percent.
Pew Research Center 2014 survey report
The prosperity of religion is based on the number of believers, and the extremely small proportion of Believers in China, let alone the European tradition of institutional donation, determines that temples cannot rely on the offerings of believers alone, and need to consider how to benefit from atheists and non-religious believers.
The small number of people who believe that religion is very sacred, this kind of thinking in turn affects the religious institutions themselves, and the temples are freed from the spiritual shackles of the religious purity and sacredness, put down the shelves, no longer maintain the aura of sacredness, and devote themselves to secular goals.
Third, the nature of Chinese temples as tourist attractions is far greater than the nature of their religious sites
Western churches are basically pure places of religious activity, emphasizing the purity and piety of religion, and not allowing commercial utilitarianism. Moreover, the church already has a stable and huge amount of worship and other income for believers, and there is really no need to add more tickets, but it undermines the sanctity of religion and is criticized by people.
But after China's reform and opening up, economic and commercial activities began to prosper and active, religious sites can receive a large number of foreign visitors, temples have taken the first step from self-sufficiency to profits, there is no history to accumulate wealth, there is no support of a large number of wealthy believers, and finally the temple decided to learn from parks and gardens, etc. Admission is the most convenient and fast means of profit.
In addition, the construction of scenic spots requires a lot of preliminary construction, such as the treatment of the environment, the construction of roads, the transformation of hydropower commercial points and other basic projects, the investment is huge, obviously the temple itself is unable to operate, the need for the local government to invest in advance. There is a harvest of investment, not to mention the positioning of the temple as a tourist attraction, and the local government has changed its name to participate in the commission of temple income.
Take the Shaolin Temple as an example: According to reports, in 1975, the Shaolin Temple began to sell tickets to the outside world, with a ticket price of 5 cents. The production and sale of tickets is the responsibility of the cultural relics depository under the Dengfeng Cultural and Educational Bureau, and the income from the tickets is entered into the account of the Dengfeng Finance Bureau.
On April 1, 1984, the right to administer the shaolin temple was transferred to the Shaolin monks, and all the ticket revenue went to the Shaolin monks, and the Dengfeng County Cultural Relics Depository withdrew from the Shaolin Temple.
In 1986, the Dengfeng County government opened a commercial street in the east of the Shaolin Temple, and commercial fraud was rampant, and the peripheral environment of the Shaolin Temple caused dissatisfaction among the central leadership. The Dengfeng government invested 300 million yuan to demolish residents and merchants near the Shaolin Temple. In 2008, the Dengfeng Municipal Government applied for the heritage of the Songshan Historical Building Complex and carried out environmental remediation, and invested hundreds of millions of yuan.
In 1994, the right to enter the Shaolin Temple returned to the government. The accurate statement should be: the government sells tickets, and the Shaolin Temple cancels the ticket sales in front of the mountain gate. The government distributes a proportion of the revenue from the entrance fees to the Shaolin Temple. Or the Shaolin Temple and the Dengfeng County Government jointly sell tickets. ——Quoted from Yue Xiaofeng's "A Brief History of Shaolin Temple Tickets".
The abbot of the Shaolin Temple, Shi Yongxin, once said in an interview that in 1994, the Dengfeng government set up a ticket management office, and the Shaolin Temple and the management office jointly sold tickets, and the income was roughly 30% of the Shaolin Temple and 70% of the government. In 2009, the Shaolin Temple and the "Songshan Scenic Area Management Committee" signed an agreement, party A Song management committee is responsible for "unified management of songshan Shaolin scenic spot ticket business", the ticket price is 100 yuan per person, as party B's Shaolin Temple "30 yuan per person." "Later, due to the unclear distribution of benefits and the excessive amount involved, disputes were triggered, and from January 2011 to October 2013, the amount in dispute reached nearly 50 million yuan, which can be imagined how big the real income should be."
Therefore, in view of historical and practical reasons, it has become a common practice for Chinese temples to sell tickets, and it also involves the distribution of benefits outside the temple, and the amount is huge, which is one of the financial pillars of many local governments. Whether or not to charge tickets and how much tickets should be sold is not a matter that can be decided by the temple alone, and the local government is the one who holds the right to decide.
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