A Evangelical church in Hesse and Nassau, Germany, has developed a robot priest to grant auto-blessings as part of a celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

The unique robot, called BlessU-2, has a metallic body, a digital mouth and a touchscreen on its chest. It beams lights from its hands and forgives sins in five different languages in either a male or female voice.

After a person chooses what kind of a blessing he or she wants, the robot raises its arms, says "God bless and protect you" and recites a Bible verse. Upon request, the user can then print out the dictum.

The idea is being met with mixed reactions by worshipers, with some saying a machine can never replace a human pastor, and other reporting coming to the church more often to see the robot.

But a spokesperson from the church, Sebastian von Gehren, told reporters that the developers had expected controversy. According to von Gehren, BlessU-2 was meant to provoke debate about the future of technology and the church and for that purpose was by design not given a typical human appearance.

"The idea is to provoke debate," Stephan Krebs, church staff representative, told RT.

"People from the street are curious, amused and interested. They are really taken with it, and are very positive. But inside the church some people think we want to replace human pastors with machines. Those that are church-oriented are more critical."

A celebration in the historic town of Wittenberg marks 500 years since German priest Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" to the church door — a work widely acknowledged to have sparked the Protestant Reformation.