The German state of Bavaria was plunged into controversy on Wednesday after the regional government ordered Christian crosses to be publicly displayed in all its official buildings.

“The cross is a fundamental symbol of our Bavarian identity and way of life,” Markus Söder, the regional prime minister said in a statement.

But opposition leaders denounced the move as unconstitutional and claimed Mr Söder was trying to politicise religion ahead of regional elections later this year.

The move was compared to the religious policies of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erodgan, and a leading Roman Catholic theologian accused Mr Söder of “using Christianity to exclude people of other faiths”.

It comes amid heated public debate over the role of religion in Germany society. Angela Merkel publicly rebuked her interior minister, Horst Seehofer, earlier this year after he claimed “Islam has no place in Germany”.

But Mr Seehofer, who comes from Bavaria and is leader of Mr Söder’s Christian Social Union party (CSU), has refused to back down over the issue.

The CSU is the Bavarian sister party to Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) - but they are deeply divided over the issue.

The German constitution guarantees official religious neutrality and religious symbols are rarely displayed in government buildings. But Mr Seehofer and other figures on the political right have argued that Germany has a “dominant culture” which is Christian.