Berlin Cathedral

Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church Oberpfarr- und Domkirche (de)
View from the west to the church with the simplified reconstruction of its domes (2006)
Religion
Affiliation	United Protestant, originally Roman Catholic, from 1539 on Lutheran, Calvinist since 1613, from 1817 on Evangelical Protestant
District	Sprengel Berlin (region), Kirchenkreis Berlin Stadtmitte (deanery)
Province	Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia
Year consecrated	1454 then as Roman Catholic St. Erasmus Chapel
Location
Location	Cölln, a historical neighbourhood of Berlin, Germany
Architecture
Architect(s)	Martin Böhme (1717), Johann Boumann the Elder (1747–1750), Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1817 and 1820–1822), Julius and Otto Raschdorff, father and son (1894–1905),
Style	Renaissance (until 1538), Brick Gothic (1538–1747), Baroque (1747-1817/ 1822), Neoclassical (1817–1893), Neo-Renaissance since 1905
Completed	1451 (first building), ca. 1345 (2nd bldg), 1750 (3rd bldg), 1905 (4th bldg), 1993 reinaugurated after removal of war destructions
Construction cost	11.5 million Marks (1905)
Specifications
Direction of façade	west
Length	114 meters, shorter since the demolition of the northern memorial hall in 1975
Width	74 meters
Dome height (outer)	115 meters (until destruction 1944)
Materials	originally brick, since 1905 Silesian sandstone
Website
English and German official website of the congregation

Berlin Cathedral (German: Berliner Dom) is the colloquial name for the Evangelical (i.e. Protestant) Oberpfarr- und Domkirche (English analogously: Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church, literally Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church) in Berlin, Germany. It is the parish church of the Evangelical congregation Gemeinde der Oberpfarr- und Domkirche zu Berlin, a member of the umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. Its present building is located on Museum Island in the Mitte borough.

The Berlin Cathedral has never been a cathedral in the actual sense of that term since it has never been the seat of a bishop. The bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg (under this name 1945–2003) is based in St. Mary's Church, Berlin, and Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. St. Hedwig's Cathedral serves as seat of Berlin's Roman Catholic metropolitan bishop.

Establishment of a Collegiate Church in Berlin (1451–1536)

The history of today's Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church and its community dates back to 1451. In that year Prince-Elector Frederick II Irontooth of Brandenburg moved with his residence from Brandenburg upon Havel to Cölln (today's Fishers' Island, the southern part of Museum Island) into the newly erected Berlin Castle, which also housed a Catholic castle chapel. In 1454 Frederick Irontooth, after having returned – via Rome – from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, elevated the castle chapel to become a parish church, richly endowing it with relics and altars. Pope Nicholas V ordered Stephan Bodecker, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, to consecrate the Chapel to Erasmus of Formiae.

On 7 April 1465 – at Frederick Irontooth's request – Pope Paul II attributed to St Erasmus Chapel a canon-law College named Stift zu Ehren Unserer Lieben Frauen, des heiligen Kreuzes, St. Petri und Pauli, St. Erasmi und St. Nicolai dedicated to Mary(am) of Nazareth, the Holy Cross, Simon Peter, Paul of Tarsus, Erasmus of Formiae, and Nicholas of Myra. A collegiate church is a church endowed with revenues and earning estates, in order to provide a number of canons, called in canon law a College, with prebendaries. In this respect a collegiate church is similar to a cathedral, which is why in colloquial German the term cathedral college (Domstift), became the synecdoche used – pars pro toto – for all canon-law colleges. So the college of St. Erasmus' chapel, called Domstift in German, bestowed the pertaining church its colloquial naming, Domkirche (cathedral church). Frederick Irontooth provided the College with estates, sufficient to supply prebendaries for eight canons. On 20 January 1469 Dietrich IV, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, invested eight clergymen, chosen by Frederick Irontooth, as collegiate canons with the prebendaries.

The Collegiate Church Residing in the former Black Friars' Church of St. Paul's south of the Castle (1536–1747)

In 1535 Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector reached the consent of Pope Paul III to shut down the 1297-founded Dominican convent (Black Friars), southerly neighboured to the castle, to acquire the pertaining monastic St. Paul's Church, built ca. in 1345. On 28 May 1536 most of the Black Friars moved to a Dominican monastery in Brandenburg upon Havel. Joachim II Hector assigned the thus void, three-nave church building to the Collegiate Church of Our Lady, the Holy Cross, the Ss. Peter, Paul, Erasmus and Nicholas and enlarged the College to 12 prebendaries, bestowing two of them to canons taken on from the Dominican convent. From 1545 on the electoral family of Hohenzollern used the church building also as their burial place.

The complex of Berlin's residential castle and the Supreme Parish Church with its double-tower façade of 1538 in the right (southern) corner. Miniature shown in the present church building.

In 1538 a new western façade with two towers was attached to the collegiate church, which – due to its prior status as a church of a mendicant order – had no tower before. In the next year Joachim II Hector converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism, as earlier had done many of his subjects. The collegiate church thus became Lutheran too, like most of the electoral subjects and all the churches in the Electorate. However, Joachim II Hector's ideas of Reformation were different from the modern ones. After his conversion he enriched the collegiate church with luxuriant furnishings, such as paraments, monstrances, relics, chasubles, carpets and antependia.

In 1608, the year of his accession to the throne, Prince-Elector John Sigismund, then a crypto-Calvinist, dissolved the college and the church was renamed into Supreme Parish Church of St. Trinity in Cölln. In 1613 John Sigismund publicly confessed his Calvinist faith (in Germany usually called Reformed Church), but waived his privilege to demand the same of his subjects (Cuius regio, eius religio). So he and his family, except of his steadfastly Lutheran wife Anna, converted, while most of his subjects remained Lutherans. While Berlin's other churches, subject to Lutheran city-council jurisdiction, remained Lutheran, the Supreme Parish Church of St. Trinity, the Hohenzollern's house church, became Berlin's first, and until 1695 only Calvinist church, serving from 1632 on as the parish for all Calvinists in town. Being now a Calvinist church the patronage of the Holy Trinity was increasingly skipped.

In 1667 the dilapidated double-tower façade was torn down and in 1717 Martin Böhme erected a new baroque façade with two towers. With effect of 1 January 1710 Cölln was united with Berlin under the latter name. In 1747 the Supreme Parish Church was completely demolished to clear space for the baroque extension of the Berlin Castle.

The Supreme Parish Church Residing in its new Building north of the Castle (1750–1893)

Miniature of the Supreme Parish Church in Berlin, as in 1750 J. Boumann the Elder built it.

On 6 September 1750 the new baroque Calvinist Supreme Parish Church was inaugurated, built by Johann Boumann the Elder in 1747–1750. The electoral tombs were translated to the new building. The new structure covered a space north of the castle, which is still covered by the present building.

In 1817 – under the auspices of King Frederick William III of Prussia – the community of the Supreme Parish Church, like most Prussian Calvinist and Lutheran congregations joined the common umbrella organisation named Evangelical Church in Prussia (under this name since 1821), with each congregation maintaining its former denomination or adopting the new united denomination. The community of the Supreme Parish Church adopted the new denomination of the Prussian Union. Today's presbytery of the congregation bears the unusual name in German: Domkirchenkollegium, literally in Cathedral College, thus recalling the history of the church as collegiate church.

In celebration of the Union Karl Friedrich Schinkel remodelled the interior in the same year and in 1820–1822 the exterior of Boumann's church in the neoclassicist style. The Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church faced at its southern façade the Berlin Castle, the palace of the Hohenzollern (destroyed in World War II), and the Lustgarten park at its western front, which is still there.

The Main Organ in the Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church

The pipe organ, built by Wilhelm Sauer, was fully restored during reconstruction. It has 113 stops, including three ranks of 32' pipes on the pedal division, played by a 4-manual console:

I Hauptwerk C–a3 Prinzipal 16′ Majorbaß 16′ Prinzipal 8′′ Doppelflöte 8 Prinzipal amabile 8′ Flute harmonique 8′ Viola di Gamba 8′ Bordun 8′ Gemshorn 8′ Quintatön 8′ Harmonika 8′ Gedacktquinte 51/3′ Oktave 4′ Flute octaviante 4′ Fugara 4′ Rohrflöte 4′ Oktave 2′ Rauschquinte II Grosscymbel III Scharff III–V Kornett III–IV Bombarde 16′ Trompete 8′ Clairon 4′

II Brustwerk C–a3 Prinzipal 16′ Quintatön 16′ Prinzipal 8′ Doppelflöte 8′ Geigenprinzipal 8′ Spitzflöte 8′ Salicional 8′ Soloflöte 8′ Dulciana 8′ Rohrflöte 8′ Oktave 4′ Spitzflöte 4′′ Salicional 4 Flauto Dolce 4′ Quinte 22/3′ Piccolo 2′ Mixtur IV Cymbel III Kornett III Tuba 8′ Klarinette 8′

III Schwellwerk C–a3 Salicional 16′ Bordun 16′ Prinzipal 8′ Hohlflöte 8′ Gemshorn 8′ Schalmei 8′ Konzertflöte 8′ Dolce 8′ Gedeckt 8′ Unda maris 8′ Oktave 4′ Gemshorn 4′ Quintatön 4′ Traversflöte 4′ Nasard 22/3′ Waldflöte 2′ Terz 21/5′ Mixtur III Trompete 8′ Cor anglais 8′ Glockenspiel Rückpositiv Flötenprinzipal 8′ Flöte 8′ Gedackt 8′ Dulciana 8′ Zartflöte 4′

IV Schwellwerk C–a3 Lieblich Gedackt 16′ Prinzipal 8′ Traversflöte 8′ Spitzflöte 8′ Lieblich Gedackt 8′ Quintatön 8′ Aeoline 8′ Voix céleste 8′ Prestant 4′ Fernflöte 4′ Violine 4′ Gemshornquinte 22/3′ Flautino 2′ Harmonia aetheria III Trompete 8′ Oboe 8′ Vox Humana 8′ Tremolo zu Vox humana

Pedal C–f1 Prinzipal 32′ Untersatz 32′ Prinzipal 16′ Offenbaß 16′ Violon 16′ Subbaß 16′ Gemshorn 16′ Liebliche Gedackt 16′ Quintbaß 102/3′ Prinzipal 8′ Flötenbaß 8′ Violoncello 8′ Gedackt 8′ Dulciana 8′ Quinte 51/3′ Oktave 4′ Terz 31/5′ Quinte 22/3′ Septime 22/7′ Oktave 2′ Mixtur III Kontraposaune 32′ Posaune 16′ Fagott 16′ Trompete 8′ Clairon 4′

• II/I, III/I, IV/I, Super I, III/II, IV/II, Super II, IV/III, I/P, II/P, III/P, IV/P
• 3 Freie Kombinationen, Mezzoforte, Forte, Tutti, Rohrwerke, Jalousieschweller III. Manual, Jalousieschweller IV. Manual, Jalousieschweller Vox humana, Handregister ab, Rückpositiv ab.

References

• Wolfgang Gottschalk, Altberliner Kirchen in historischen Ansichten, Würzburg: Weidlich, 1985. ISBN 3-8035-1262-X.
• Arno Hach, Alt-Berlin im Spiegel seiner Kirchen: Rückblicke in die versunkene Altstadt (¹1933), Ammerbuch: Beggerow, ²2002. ISBN 3-936103-00-3.
• Günther Kühne and Elisabeth Stephani, Evangelische Kirchen in Berlin (¹1978), Berlin: CZV-Verlag, ²1986. ISBN 3-7674-0158-4.
• Ingo Materna and Wolfgang Ribbe, Geschichte in Daten – Brandenburg, Munich and Berlin: Koehler & Amelang, 1995. ISBN 3-7338-0188-1.
• Michael Pohl, Die Grosse Sauer-Orgel im Berliner Dom [CD]. Ursina Motette. ISSN 4-008950-117812.

External links

• Berlin Cathedral (history, description, visitor information).
• Berlin Cathedral – Panorama
• Berlin Cathedral – Virtual tour
• Berlin Cathedral, its destruction and restoration
• Berlin webcam including view of Berlin Cathedral and the Palace of the Republic
• Three-dimensional view of Berlin Cathedral (without plugin English, German, Spanish)