Catholic canon law addresses emergencies using terms such as 'casus necessitatis' ('case of necessity'), 'causa urgens' ('urgent cause') or even 'periculum mortis' ('danger of death'). However, they are limited to individual emergencies. The legislator aims to enable spiritual assistance, especially the administration of the sacraments, even in these cases, and therefore minimises the legal requirements. By contrast, collective emergencies are not considered, which resulted in a certain legal limbo during the Covid pandemic. The speaker examines the legislative reactions of individual dioceses in Bavaria during the main phase of the pandemic. He observes that they did not seek to facilitate pastoral and liturgical acts, but to impede and prevent them. This is in contrast to church policies for plague epidemics of past centuries. In Germany, a system of cooperation between the state and the churches exists. During the pandemic, this became evident in the bishops' strategy of issuing parallel decrees in close consultation with the state. Since ecumenism is highly valued in Germany, the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches issued a joint statement, declaring their intention to consistently adhere to the state's directives. An interreligious comparison shows that complaints about a violation of religious freedom only came from individual believers, Catholic peripheral groups and religious minorities. A well-known expert in ecclesiastical law uttered the controversial dictum: 'In a state of emergency, rules are made by circumstances.' It would be desirable for the future though to have church legislation that provide general rules for collective emergencies.