Berlin Cathedral

The magnificent dome of the Cathedral Church (Berliner Dom) is one of the main landmarks in Berlin’s cityscape – and marks the spot of the impressive basilica housing the city’s most important Protestant church.

Release time : 2017-07-27 19:10:04

source : www.visitberlin.de

The magnificent dome of the Cathedral Church (Berliner Dom) is one of the main landmarks in Berlin’s cityscape - and marks the spot of the impressive basilica housing the city’s most important Protestant church. With its elaborate decorative and ornamental designs, the church interior is especially worth seeing.

Yet although the church is known as a cathedral, it actually has the status of a parish church - though not just any parish. This was the court church to the Hohenzollern dynasty, the rulers of Prussia and later the German Emperors. Today, as the High Parish and Cathedral Church, the church serves the Protestant community in Berlin and the surrounding areas. The congregation is not based on place of residence, but open through admission to all baptised Protestants in the region.

（©iStock.com, Foto: Chalabala）

History - A Court Church for the Prussian monarchy

The history of the church on the island in the River Spree goes back to the fifteenth century, when the chapel of the new royal city palace was elevated to the status of a collegiate church. As a collegiate church, this was a Domkirche (cathedral church). Even though not technically a cathedral, since it is neither the seat of a bishop nor the central church in a diocese, the church continued to be known as the Dom (cathedral) down the centuries.

In the early nineteenth century, Prussia’s leading architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel transformed the court church into a neo-classical building. But fifty years on, tastes had changed. By the time Friedrich Wilhelm II came to throne as Emperor of Germany in 1888, several designs had been proposed for a new church, though none had been accepted. The Emperor also found the Schinkel church far too modest, and insisted on a new monumental church in keeping with the imperial monarchy’s power and prestige. Architect Julius Carl Raschdorff was commissioned for the new church, but had to present three