The Archdiocese of Cologne is the largest diocese in Germany in terms of members. Some 2.1 million Catholics live in its 680 parishes both east and west of the River Rhine. Its main church is Cologne Cathedral, one of the most important cathedrals in the world and also one of Germany’s most popular tourist destinations. Arguably the largest and longest running OpenCms installation in the world, the Archdiocese of Cologne is using OpenCms for more than 10 years to maintain a variety of different websites. These include the website for the main administration, individual parish sites and also sites for a multitude of sub-organizations like Caritas, adult education and media, to name but a few. After the update to version 8 last year, a new template taking full advantage of the latest OpenCms features is already in place. Yet there are over 100000 pages in the various websites of the Archdiocese, many of which are unchanged for years and require an editorial rewrite as much as a technical update. While the overhaul progresses, OpenCms is used to manage both old and new pages in parallel. This session will describe the update process and introduce tools developed for an automatic migration of pages to OpenCms 8 ADE technology.

1. The Archdiocese of Cologne and its new
homepage
The Catholic Church in the Rhineland

2. What does Archdioceses of Cologne mean?
The Archdiocese of Cologne is a territorial administrative unit of the Roman
Catholic Church with its own jurisdiction and administration sovereignty.
Hence the Archdiocese is a corporate body organised under public law.
The Archdiocese is under the leadership of the archbishop.
The domicile and administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne is situated in
Cologne.
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3. What is the scope of
the Archdiocese of
Cologne?
The Archdiocese extends
over an area of around
6,200 km2.
This equates to a fifth of the
area of the state
North Rhine-Westphalia.
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4. Facts and figures about the Archdiocese
With 2.1 million Catholic members the Archdiocese of Cologne
forms the strongest German diocese, followed by Freiburg (im
Breisgau) and Münster with ∼2 million members each.
Compared to global dioceses’ member rates the Archdiocese of
Cologne is ranked in 35th place.
Other Dioceses count much higher member numbers such as Mexico
with ∼7.8 m. Catholics, São Paulo with ∼5.5 m. and Milan which
has ∼4.9 m. members.
There are 183 places of pastoral care with 554 parishes,
∼800 churches and
∼400 subsidiary churches, of which
600 are designated as historic monuments.
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5. Facts and figures about the Archdiocese
What is of greatest importance to the church as well as its
commitment for people cannot be expressed simply by numbers:
Pastoral advice, supporting each other within the community, one on
one support for individuals, Mass, the active and caring community
in groups and unions…but numbers can illustrate how important it
is for many people to commit themselves to their church and to
helping each other.
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6. Facts and figures about the Archdiocese
In the Archdiocese of Cologne
more than 30,000 young people work voluntarily
more than 30,000 members are committed in choirs
more than 15,000 people in leadership positions
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7. Facts and figures about the Archdiocese
more than 20,000 employed as staff in Mass, visiting (service) and
libraries.
more than 5,000 people are involved as Youth Group leaders
more than 3,000 men and women volunteer as church musicians,
sextons and in cleaning and nursing services
more than 13,000 people help in Caritas working in households, with
families and with the sick, but also helping with collections and
activities
Commitment:
There are around 80,000 members of the Archdiocese volunteering
and in total 200,000 people contributing to volunteer services.
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8. The Archdiocese of Cologne –
Employer of services
Due to the high number of church institutions it is only possible to give an
approximate number of employees of the Archdiocese of Cologne - which lies
at around 50,000
There are:
2,000 people in the pastoral service
2,900 employees in the parishes
5,000 employees involved in educational child day-care services
1,100 employees in playschools (incl. caretaker, cleaning service and kitchen
work)
2,000 teaching staff in catholic schools and boarding schools
1,800 employees in the Institution and Administration of the Archdiocese
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9. Caritas in the Archdiocese of Cologne
Support for people in need
 54 Hospitals in Catholic Sponsorship with around 15,000 beds
 148 Retirement and Nursing Homes for elderly people with around 14,423
places
 42 Residential Houses for the mentally and psychologically ill, the
physically disabled, and multi handicapped people
 10 Inpatient Hospices
 46 Nursing Services and Stations taking care of around 13,800 people a
day
 21 Counselling and Treatment Centres for addicts
 56 Educational Aid Homes with around 2,620 places
 15 Information Centres for pregnant women
 20 Special Services for social education family help
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10. Caritas in the Archdiocese of Cologne
Support for people in need
 582 Catholic play schools with more than 37,400 children
 3 Family holiday facilities, 7 women refuges, and a Mother and Child
Health Resort
 17 Educational counselling centres and 11 marriage, family and lifestyle
counselling centres
 45 Counselling centres for foreigners and residential homes for foreign
young people
 18 Counselling centres and employment agencies for unemployed
people
 13 Counselling centres for handicapped persons
 13 Dept counselling centres
 15 Town and Caritas-District-Associations and Catholic Social
Associations in the communities of the Archdiocese of Cologne
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11. The Archdiocese of Cologne
Facilitator for Education and Culture
Also schools and other educational facilities belong to the Archdiocese of
Cologne, such as libraries, archives, museums and also a radio station.
There is:
 46 Catholic Private Schools of all levels
 2,000 Teaching staff plus 5,200 Religious Education Teachers
 33,000 Pupils.
 11 Town and District Education Facilities
 16 Family Education Centres
 5 Youth Education Centres
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12. Archdiocese of Cologne
Facilitator for Education and Culture
There is:
 1 Art museum
 5 Congress Centres
 2 accredited Education Centres for Further Education NRW
 2 Institutes for Further Education for teaching staff
 2 Seminaries
 1 Philosophical – Theological Institute
 Public Catholic Libraries, with one scientific library, in total comprising
around 1,6m. books, games, video and audio facilities
 1 Radio Station
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13. The Archdiocese of Cologne –
It is an enterprise
The Archdiocese of Cologne is a part of the Catholic
Church with a community of 2.1 m. people.
The Archdiocese has a 2000 year old history and is
therefore deeply socio-politically rooted in a
secular and modern society.
The Archdiocese is a facilitator of a variety of social
services.
The Archdiocese is a facilitator of a variety of
cultural services and cultural goods.
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14. The Archdiocese of Cologne and its internet presence
A challenge!
Problems coming up in the beginning of the century:
The variety of services and institutions favoured a fragmentation of
the Archdiocese’s image and its content on the internet.
Every institution and department developed its own homepage with
different web technologies and web designs.
The identity of the archdiocese‘s institutions as part of the
Catholic Church was pushed into the background.
As a consequence the Archdiocese of Cologne as a versatile and
useful enterprise wasn‘t represented and understood in its entirety.
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15. OpenCms – A strategic offer
The solution was the creation of a portal with a Content Platform for
everybody.
 Institutions and Facilities
 Church communities
 Associations
 Administrative offices and departments
To address and to favour all these content providers is a social and technical
challenge. Its management is called Social-Content-Management.
OpenCms –Therefore it needs to be a user friendly and attractive product for the
content provider and the editor.
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16. OpenCms – A strategic instrument
The solution:
A multi-client capable Content-Management-System with the
following features:
• Open technologies – sustainable open standards
• A technology, which implicates a high safety standard
• An expandable system with compatible versions on the platform
• A system that the editor is able to use intuitively
• A system that provides the expert with room for creativity
• A system that is adaptive to a dynamic enterprise strategy
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17. OpenCms – A strategic offer
The Archdiocese of Cologne has used OpenCms since the year 2000.
The OpenCms-Server-Cluster since then is running without interruption –
on every application version and any update.
During this period the Archdiocese was able to develop and change
contents depending on it’s needs and according to strategy.
The staff was made familiar with OpenCms using a comprehensive
editorial approach across the different institutions.
Over the last 13 years OpenCms has proven its capabilities through
stability and reliability.
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18. OpenCms – A strategic offer
Application Statistics of OpenCms
System of the Archdiocese of Cologne
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19. OpenCms – A strategic offer
Application Statistics: Websites
16 administrated websites of content providers
with 1.109 microsites/subsites
– Church community (415) – Associations (27)
– General Topics (207) – Conference
Centres(25)
– Archdiocese Cologne (199)
– Education (8)
– Caritas (116)
– Schools (7)
– Youth pastoral (74)
– Religious Order (6)
– Training and information (27)
– Catholic Shooting
Clubs (6)
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20. OpenCms – A strategic offer
Application Statistics: Websites
More than 2.100 OpenCms Workplace Users
which have 377 Organizational Units
– Church community (156) – General Topics (5)
– Youth pastoral (32) – Education (4)
– Archdiocese Cologne (20) – Religious Order (3)
– Schools (14) – Catholic Shooting Clubs(3)
– Associations (11) – Training and Information (3)
– Caritas (7) – Conference Centres (3)
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21. OpenCms – A strategic offer
Application Statistics: Websites
More than 48,000 created web pages
235,336 Images
42,750 binary files (PDF, Word, etc.)
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22. OpenCms – A strategic offer
Application Statistics: Websites
caritas 935.355 77.946 4.853.250 404.438
congregation
s 1.316.770 109.731 8.304.788 692.066
Youth
pastoral 299.787 24.982 1.957.225 163.102
General
topics 112.841 9.403 308.799 25.733
Conf. Centre 194.013 16.168 1.313.804 109.484
Cath.shoot.Cl
ub 129.137 10.762 641.226 53.436
Associations 103.449 8.621 601.070 50.089
4.441.786 370.149 24.403.545 2.033.630
erzbistum-koeln.de counts the highest amount of page views compared
to the other german church portals. (Source: Google)
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23. OpenCms – A strategic offer
OpenCms is a Social-Content-Management Solution for many but not
for everyone in the Archdiocese of Cologne.
OpenCms needs to be user friendly and accessible.
The Project will only continue to grow, if strategy, concept and
application convince the user.
The motivation of the staff via a good technology will foster good quality
content and the latter is responsible for an increasing number of
visitors.
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24. OpenCms – a Portal for the Archdiocese
Cologne
www.erzbistum-koeln.de
The Archdiocese Cologne offers six thematic areas:
3. Pastoral
4. Advice 5. Education 6. Press
1. Archdiocese 2. Local Church Advice
& Support & Culture & Media
& religion
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25. OpenCms – a Portal for the Archdiocese
Cologne
www.erzbistum-koeln.de
Thank you for your attention!
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