Europe’s top human rights court has ruled that a medieval antisemitic carving affixed to a German cathedral may remain in place, rejecting a petition filed by a Jewish retiree who argued the relief violates the rights of Jews in Germany.

According to a report Friday in the German magazine Der Spiegel, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed the complaint concerning the so-called “Judensau” — or “Jews’ sow” — relief embedded in the exterior wall of the cathedral in Wittenberg, Germany.

The carving, created around 1290, depicts figures identified as Jews engaged in intimate contact with a pig. In the relief, two figures wearing pointed hats — historically used in medieval Europe to mark Jews — appear to suckle from the animal. A third figure, resembling a rabbi, lifts the pig’s tail and looks into its hindquarters.

Historians say the “Judensau” motif was intended to ridicule and degrade Jews, warning Christians against supposed “Jewish behavior.” The Wittenberg carving is one of 47 surviving depictions of the motif from the 13th century, most of them located in German-speaking regions. The images are widely regarded as stark examples of entrenched Christian antisemitism during the Middle Ages.

The petitioner, Dietrich Döllmann, argued that the continued public display of the relief infringes on his fundamental rights. His attorneys contended that through “bizarre and distorted imagery, Jews were portrayed as the filth of humanity,” and maintained that leaving the carving in place violates the personal rights of “every Jew in Germany.”

Germany’s Federal Court of Justice addressed the issue in 2022, ruling that although the carving constitutes “antisemitism carved in stone,” the Protestant church that oversees the cathedral had sufficiently distanced itself from the image. The court said the relief had been contextualized and effectively transformed into a “Mahnmal” — a German term describing a memorial that serves as a warning against future wrongdoing or against the repetition of past atrocities. Holocaust memorials are often described using the same term.

The European court’s decision leaves that ruling intact, allowing the relief to remain on the cathedral’s southeast façade.

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