Berliners will converge on the city’s malls on Sunday for one last bout of Christmas shopping. But, if the country’s clergymen have their way, German shoppers will, in future, have nowhere to go on the Sabbath but the Christmas markets.

In the year’s most unlikely labour dispute, Christian clerics have launched an all-out attack on a left-wing city government they think is transgressing a fundamental workers’ right. And they have struck a chord in a country growing uncomfortable about all aspects of economic liberalisation.