The image, known as “Judensau,” or “Jews’ sow,” depicts a rabbi staring into the anus of a female pig who is being suckled by two other Jewish people. An inscription above it reads “Rabini Shem hamphoras,” which is “gibberish,” petitioners say, though they believe it is meant to mock the fully pronounced name of God, “shem ha-meforasch.”

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It is on the side of Stadtkirch Wittenberg (Town Church), where Luther preached.

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The portrayal of Jews symbolizes an anti-Semitic trope that Jews, whose religion forbids pork, receive their sustenance and scripture from unclean animals, according to Agence France-Presse.

The judges made their ruling based on two things, Deutsche Welle reports: there is an informational sign, placed on the ground in 1988 next to the church’s wall, and the church itself is a protected United Nations cultural site.

Henning Haberland, a court spokesperson, told reporters that while the sculpture can seem offensive on its own, its current context “in which it has been placed by the church … has lost its insulting character,” the BBC wrote.

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The information board also mentions the 6 million Jews were killed under Hitler, according to BBC.

“As a pastor, I am also filled with shame and pain that this [sculpture] hangs on the facade of our church,” Johannes Block, the pastor at the Wittenberg Stadtkirche, told Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The parish wanted to leave it as a reminder of Luther’s and the church’s anti-Semitic past, he told the local paper.

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The request for the removal started in 2018 when environmental and human rights activist Michael Düllmann, now 76, filed a filed lawsuit in a lower court that claimed the statue was insulting to Jews and should therefore be removed, Agence France-Presse reported.

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“As long as ‘Jewish sows’ hang on German churches, they are part of the proclamations of Christian churches, ” Düllmann, who is Jewish, told Der Spiegel in an interview leading up to Tuesday’s ruling. “[The churches are] the main ones responsible for anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism.”

The decision can be appealed to Germany’s highest court, which Düllmann intends to pursue, the Associated Press reported. If the high court makes the same decision, he plans to take his case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, he told Der Spiegel.

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Scholars have written that the image appeared on other structures throughout 13th and 14th century Germany. Similar anti-Semitic images that communicated that Jews weren’t welcomed are still on churches across Germany, including the Cologne Cathedral, Deutsche Welle reported.

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The association with Luther is what makes this particular rendition of Judensau more controversial and notable, according to local reports.

Luther preached at the church two centuries after it first opened, Agence France-Presse reported. The prominent theologian, whose homilies and writings encouraged a departure from Roman Catholic Church and ushered in Protestant Christianity, is also known to have been anti-Semitic.

Luther published disparaging words against Jews in writings titled “On Jews and Their Lies” and “Of the Unknowable Name and the Generations of Christ,” where he argued Jews didn’t deserve any protection and compared them to the Devil.

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Nazis used his words as justification for their mass killings of Jews, according to Agence France-Presse.

“We did not ask for this sculpture,” Block said, “but are trying to handle this difficult inheritance responsibly.”