A German hotline for victims of sexual abuse by clerics was deluged with thousands of calls in the week after the Roman Catholic Church launched the counselling service in a bid to restore trust.

A total of 13,293 people attempted to call the hotline over the course of the first week but only 2,670 were able to connect with the overwhelmed 11 counsellors on duty, church officials said.

“We didn’t expect so many calls,” said Stephan Kronenburg, spokesman for the diocese of Trier where the hotline control centre is located.

“It’s been well received. Many have called to say they’re grateful for it.”

On its first day, the hotline received 4,459 calls but the counsellors, who work in four-hour shifts, were only able to handle 162 and the service was forced to shut down temporarily.

In addition to the 11 counsellors handling the phones, seven are dedicated to online queries.

Of the 2,670 calls that made it through in the first week there were 394 telephone consultations on abuse issues that lasted from a few minutes to one hour and 91 online exchanges.

Mr Kronenburg says most of the callers were either victims of abuse or relatives of victims.

Andreas Zimmer, director of counselling services, says many of the callers were breaking a long-held silence.

“This is the first time they want to talk about the abuse because the memories and the experience of violence are often displaced,” he told German radio.

The hotline was not created to investigate suspected abuse crimes but counsellors can help refer victims to authorities if they wish to file a formal compliant.

It is part of a Church effort to shed light on abuse and win back trust after a spate of allegations of sexual and physical abuse by priests in Germany, many occurring at Catholic boarding schools decades ago.