The authorities stumbled upon the 47-year-old man from Alt-Rahlstedt while breaking up a child porn ring and they have already searched his apartment. After confiscating his computer they found a considerable amount of questionable material, according to the spokesman of the city’s state prosecutor Wilhelm Möllers.

He is also thought to have sent pictures of children at a church choir practice to another man with contacts to the pedophilia scene.

Perhaps even more worrying, the paper reported that the pastor is also being investigated for sexually abusing children. The local church has recently informed 200 parents of the case and children have already been questioned.

“The pastor has been suspended from his duties because he is suspected of committing a crime,” Thomas Kärst, a spokesman for the Northern Elbe Protestant-Lutheran Church, told Die Welt.

The pastor, who spent more than 10 years in Rahlstedt, reportedly has not had contact with his congregation for several months after church officials said he was suffering from “burnout syndrome.”