One of the largest branches of the German Protestant church has defended a pastor after she blessed a relationship between four men and called the ceremony a “marriage in the eyes of God”.

The “polycule” attended a pop-up wedding festival at the St Paul the Apostle church in Berlin as part of a programme offering free blessings for couples who wished to avoid “lengthy formalities”.

Lena Müller, 33, the youth pastor for the Berlin and Brandenburg region of the Protestant church, said the relationship had consisted of two Latvians, a Thai citizen and a fourth man who she believed was Spanish.

Müller said the men had spoken English with one another and seemed radiantly happy together. “You could see right away that there was so much love between them,” she told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper. “Why should God have anything against there being four of them rather than two?”

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