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 organisationEvangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. Its present
building is located on Museums 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 19452003) 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 (14511536)[edit]

The history of today's Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church and its community dates back to 1451.
In that year Prince-Elector Frederick IIIrontooth of Brandenburg moved with his residence
from Brandenburg upon Havel to Clln (today's Fishers' Island, the southern part of Museums Island)
into the newly erected Berlin Schloss, which also housed a Catholic chapel. In 1454
Frederick Irontooth, after having returned via Rome from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, elevated the
chapel to become a parish church, richly endowing it with relics and altars. [1] Pope Nicholas
V ordered Stephan Bodecker, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, to consecrate the chapel
to Erasmus of Formiae.[2]
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, theHoly 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.[2] In this respect a collegiate church is similar to a cathedral, which is
why in colloquial German the term cathedral college (Domstift), became the synecdocheused 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.[3] On 20 January 1469 Dietrich IV, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, invested eight
clergymen, chosen by Frederick Irontooth, as collegiate canons with the prebendaries.[2]

The Collegiate Church Residing in the former Black Friars' Church of

St. Paul's south of the Castle (15361747)[edit]
In 1535 Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector reached the consent of Pope Paul III to shut down the 1297founded 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 Collegeto 12 prebendaries, bestowing two of
them to canons taken on from the Dominican convent. [4] From 1545 on the electoral family
ofHohenzollern used the church building also as their burial place.[5]

In 1538 a new western faade with two towers was attached to the collegiate church, which due to
its prior status as a church of amendicant 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.[6]
In 1608, the year of his accession to the throne, Prince-Elector John Sigismund, then a cryptoCalvinist, dissolved the college and the church was renamed into Supreme Parish Church of St.
Trinity in Clln.[7] 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.[8]Being now a Calvinist church the patronage of the Holy Trinity was
increasingly skipped.
In 1667 the dilapidated double-tower faade was torn down and in 1717 Martin Bhme erected a
new baroque faade with two towers. With effect of 1 January 1710 Clln 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 (17501893)
On 6 September 1750 the new baroque Calvinist Supreme Parish Church was inaugurated, built by
Johann Boumann the Elder in 17471750. 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. [7]
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 inCathedral 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
18201822 the exterior of Boumann's church in theneoclassicist style.[7] The Supreme Parish and
Cathedral Church faced at its southern faade the Berlin Schloss, the palace of
the Hohenzollerns(severely damaged in World War II and demolished later by the East German
government), and the Lustgarten park at its western front, which is still there.

The Supremme Parish and Cathedral Church Residing in the Present

Building (1905 to date)

However, in the 19th century a new building was under discussion since long, but the post-Napolonic
poverty made its realisation impossible. After dismantling the movable interior (altar, paintings,
sarcophagae), Boumann's building was demolished in 1893 and Julius and Otto Raschdorff, father
and son, built the present Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church in exuberant forms of high NeoRenaissance style.[7] With no separation of Protestant church and state of Prussia, Wilhelm
II officiated as the summus episcopus (Supreme Governor of the Evangelical State Church of
Prussia's older Provinces, as it was named since 1875) and the state paid the complete construction
cost of 11,5 million Marks. At 114 metres (374 ft) long, 73 metres (240 ft) wide and 116 metres (381 ft)
tall, it was much larger than any of the previous buildings and was considered a Protestant
counterweight to St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. On 27 February 1905 the present building was
inaugurated.[9]
In 1940 the blast waves of Allied bombing blew part of the windows away. On 24 May 1944, a bomb
of combustible liquids entered the roof lantern of the dome. The fire could not be extinguished at that
unreachable section of the dome. So the lantern burnt out and collapsed into the main floor. Between
1949 and 1953 a temporary roof was built to enclose the building. On 9 May 1967 the then still
undivided Evangelical Church of the Union decided a committee for the reconstruction of
the Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church, then located in East Berlin. The government of the
Eastern German Democratic Republic did not oppose the work of the committee due to the
concomitant inflow of Deutsche Marks. In 1975 reconstruction started, simplifying the building's
original design and tearing down the northern wing (the memorial hall). In 1980 the baptistery and
wedding church was reopened for services. The restoration of the nave was begun in 1984. On 6
June 1993 the nave was reinaugurated in an event attended by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and
televised nationwide in Germany.

Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church

Oberpfarr- und Domkirche (de)

Facade of the Berlin Cathedral.

The Fernsehturmand Rotes Rathaus are visible in the
distance behind the cathedral, respectively in the
center and the right.
Basic information
Location

Clln, a historical neighbourhood of

Berlin, Germany

Affiliation

United Protestant, originally Roman

Catholic, from 1539
on Lutheran,Calvinist since 1613, from
1817 onEvangelical Protestant

Province

Evangelical Church of BerlinBrandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia

District

Sprengel Berlin (region), Kirchenkreis

Berlin Stadtmitte (deanery)

Year

1454 then as Roman Catholic St.

consecrated Erasmus Chapel

Website

English and German official website of

the congregation
Architectural description

Architect(s)

Martin Bhme (1717), Johann

Boumann the Elder (17471750), Karl
Friedrich Schinkel (1817 and 1820
1822), Julius and Otto Raschdorff,
father and son (18941905),

Architectural Renaissance (until 1538), Brick

style

Gothic(15381747), Baroque (17471817/ 1822), Neoclassical (1817

1893),Neo-Renaissance since 1905

Direction of

west

faade

Completed

1451 (first building), ca. 1345 (2nd

bldg), 1750 (3rd bldg), 1905 (4th
bldg), 1993 reinaugurated after
removal of war destructions

Construction 11.5 million Marks (1905)

cost

Specifications

Length

114 meters, shorter since the

demolition of the northern memorial
hall in 1975

Width

74 meters

Dome height 115 meters (until destruction 1944)

(outer)

Materials

originally brick, since 1905

Silesiansandstone