SUSANNE WENGER Metalchurch pastor Samuel Hug talks to us in his little office in Kirchberg near Berne, not far from the Protestant Reformed church that has dominated the village landscape for more than 500 years – although Switzerland’s most recently formed congregation has no church building of its own. “It keeps us on our toes,” he says. Hug’s black hoodie has a band logo. Music flyers hang on the wall, next to shelves containing books on heavy metal as well as hundreds of CDs. Physical audio formats are popular among metal fans. When writing his sermons, Hug listens to heavy metal and looks for ways to connect this music with the gospel. “I always find something.” Hug, an ordained minister in the Reformed Church, is married and has four sons. He used to serve two rural parishes in Berne, the canton with the most Reformed Church members. After the Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformed Church is Switzerland’s biggest religious denomination. Hug discovered heavy metal as a teenager in eastern Switzerland – despite warnings that this was “the devil’s music”. He fell in love with its powerful, rebellious sound. Metal legends Judas Priest, who hail from Birmingham in the UK, remain one of his favourite bands. Hug and other like-minded individuals founded Metalchurch in 2012 – firstly as a side venture, all of their own accord. “We wanted to build a bridge between the church and the metal scene,” he explains. But this took time. Hug and his friends had to win over both sides: metal fans who were sceptical, as it were, of joining the flock, and, on the other hand, members of the congregation who felt uneasy about the Protestant Reformed Church being associated with such a project. Recognition Following years of – in Hug’s words – “both sides getting to know each other”, the Berne-Jura-Solothurn Reformed Churches appointed Hug as their full-time “pastor of innovation” in 2022. In November 2025, the Synod – the secular church parliament – officially recognised the Metalchurch with only one opposing vote, promising it 180,000 Swiss francs in annual funding along with Hug’s salary. The reason it gave was that the Metalchurch attracts people who would otherwise barely have any connection to the church. The Metalchurch operates within the broad spectrum of a mainstream church, says Berne-Jura-Solothurn media relations officer Markus Dütschler, adding that the Metalchurch has steadily found its footing and grown since being founded. The Synod can see that it offers people a spiritual home. This is a remarkable first in Swiss ecclesiastical history. Switzerland’s three officially recognised churches – Roman Catholic, Protestant Reformed, and Christian Catholic – have traditionally been run along regional lines. Instead of being organised around people’s place of residence, Hug’s is the first church to be geared to a specific group of people. Unlike local parishes, it cannot collect taxes from its members, hence it receives The heavy metal church Services of worship at the social club, pastoral care at music festivals, Bible classes over beer. At the beginning of 2026, the Metalchurch became Switzerland’s first-ever recognised congregation based on a specific style of music. Facing decline, Switzerland’s official churches are looking at ways to reinvent themselves. Communion wine served in drinking horns – Pastor Samuel Hug, left, leads a Metalchurch service, with Noemi Stoller on the microphone. Photo: provided/ Marcel Gisin Swiss Review / April 2026 / No. 2 26 Society
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