BERLIN -- Priests fired, parishes closed or merged, churches for sale -- the chilly economic winds blowing through Germany have not spared Berlin's struggling Roman Catholic community.

The diocese is flat broke. Financial miscalculations, over-ambition and the fallout of the depressed economy have combined to stretch its finances beyond breaking point.

The result is a series of drastic cost-cutting measures, ranging from the relatively harmless -- scrapping holiday and Christmas pay -- to job cuts.

More than 400 full-time posts are to go, including 55 on the pastoral side such as priests. A seminary is to shut. Property is to be sold off. Spending above 1,000 euros (1,090 dollars) must be approved in advance.

An existing program of parish mergers is being speeded up so that by the end of next year there will be only 106 instead of 207, AFP reported. "We have no choice but to implement this plan," diocesan spokesman Stefan Foerner said. "We have to keep to it in order to reduce the deficit."

This year's budget for the diocese, which takes in Berlin, the surrounding state of Brandenburg and parts of northeast Germany, is projected to run a 13 million euro deficit. It owes banks and credit institutions 126 million euros. Its pension fund has a shortfall of 22 million euros.

"It's very distressing to a lot of people and the diocese," admitted Father Richard Zang, who ministers to Berlin's English-speaking Catholics.

Zang, an American who moved to the capital five years ago, is one of those priests whose contract is not being renewed and who is seeking a new job. "I think it's unlikely I will stay in Berlin," he said. "I'm very portable. I'm more disappointed for my communities." Although clearly upset, he refused to blame Church leaders. "I understand the problem both for the diocese and the communities involved and I would not like to add to the pain."

Foerner however admitted "there have been strong protests, in writing and verbally." It's only natural, he said.

The diocese says its mistake was to assume that after German reunification in 1990, Berlin would be a boom city.

It invested ambitiously -- renovating churches, pushing into new areas of formerly communist-run East Berlin, expanding infrastructure -- but the boom never really materialized. Interest on loans piled up.

In Germany, most people pay a church tax that goes directly to the diocese concerned, but Berlin and Brandenburg are mainly Protestant.

Another problem is that the unemployed do not have to pay church tax. Which means, given the jobless rate in eastern Germany is nearly twice the national average, that the Church goes short.

All of these are reasons put forward by the diocese for the debt mountain. Eric Godet, a priest in the working-class Karlshorst district of the city, said that while many people were angry, "most are also pragmatic."

"They think it was inevitable," he added, given a current economic climate of growing unemployment, little or no growth and belt-tightening measures on pensions, health and social security.

Zang said it was the same across Germany, notably in Berlin where the city authority is heavily in debt.

One consequence is that the capital may soon have fewer places of worship. Contact has been made with a car dealer who might buy a church in the north of the city. Another, in the multi-cultural Kreuzberg district, may be razed as the value of the land is higher than the building.

The diocese is encouraging parishes to think about selling off sacristies, little-used buildings, halls, even priests' accommodation.

"To clear up any misunderstandings," Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky warned last month, the rescue plan "is not a list of measures from which we can select the least uncomfortable. "Our goal is to implement all the measures as outlined."