Berliners recently held a referendum on making religious education compulsory in public schools, as opposed to the “ethics” classes currently required.

The referendum failed. Berliners want to maintain their unique separation of church and school, shared in Germany only by one other state, Bremen.

That much is less notable to me, who attended mandatory religion classes in high school in Switzerland (and found the classes ecumenical to the point where they might as well be secular ethics—we talked mostly about pollution), than the demographics of the vote: it broke down neatly along lines of the old Berlin Wall.

Those from the old communist side voted overwhelmingly against religious instruction, while those living in the West leaned in favor. In the east, people had grown up taking socialist civics classes, and preferred against bringing the churches into the mix.

Does that mean the East Berliners want less religion? Probably not. As I’ve recently realized, the religious life in Communist East Germany was far from withering; there was, in fact, a vigorous church with youth movements, continually brushing up against the limits of state tolerance; East German Protestant churches, I’ve been told, were much more vital than those of other protestants in communist Europe.