Germany’s highest-ranking Catholic clergyman has called on voters in Sunday’s state elections to reject the AfD, saying it would be “unchristian” to vote for the party.

Before the elections in the eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia, regional bishop Georg Batzing said: “Right-wing extremists like the AfD in Thuringia are not electable for Christians.”

Bishop Batzing, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, claimed that the party wanted to “overthrow our democratic, liberal system” and said it was his duty to “warn Christians about them”.

The church and the anti-immigration party have been at loggerheads for a long time.

The AfD had previously criticized the church for its support of Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees in 2015.

In February, the Bishops’ Conference officially declared that the AfD was not electable because “its ethnic-national stance was incompatible with Christian values.”

It is unclear what influence – if any – Bishop Batzing’s intervention will have on the outcome of the election.

“The most godless place in the world”

Catholicism is only a minority religion in eastern Germany. Martin Luther was a professor in the city of Wittenberg when he published his 95 theses in 1517, which led to the Reformation.

The GDR is also called the “most godless place in the world” because so many people there describe themselves as atheists – a phenomenon that is often attributed to the four decades of communist rule.

In a series of polls in recent months, the right-wing extremist AfD was in the lead in both Thuringia and Saxony.

According to recent polls, support for the party in Saxony is at 32 percent, ahead of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) in second place with 30 percent.