A crucifix in the entrance area of a state school in Bavaria violates the religious freedom of pupils. This has now been decided by the Bavarian Administrative Court (VGH) in Munich (Ref.: 7 BV 21.336 of 8 July 2025). Two schoolgirls felt that their freedom of religion had been violated by a crucifix in the entrance area of their state grammar school. The court saw the confrontation with the relatively large and centrally placed crucifix as an infringement of the constitutionally guaranteed negative freedom of religion. In doing so, the court relied on the so-called „crucifix decision“ of the Federal Constitutional Court, according to which the display of a cross or crucifix in the classrooms of a state compulsory school that is not a denominational school violates Article 4 (1) of the Basic Law (case reference: 1 BvR 1087/91 of 16 May 1995). In implementation of the judgement of the BVerfG, the Bavarian state parliament introduced an objection solution in Article 7 Para. 3 of the Bavarian Law on Education and Teaching. This means that a crucifix will continue to be displayed in every classroom in primary and secondary schools. The court left open the question of whether the installation of the crucifix in a grammar school could have been legitimised by a law passed by the Bavarian state parliament.

However, the court considered the headteacher's order that the two pupils had to attend an alternative lesson instead of the school church service, which dealt with general topics from the subject of ethics, among other things, to be lawful. According to the constitution, participation in the school church service is voluntary. However, this does not give rise to any entitlement to be exempted from lessons.