Berlin Cathedral has a long history starting as a
Catholic place of worship in the 15th century.
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 Museums Island) into the newly erected
City Palace, 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.
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
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
prebends. On 20 January 1469, Dietrich IV, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, invested eight clergymen, chosen by Frederick Irontooth, as collegiate canons with the prebends. 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 many of his subjects had done earlier. 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. From 1545 on the electoral family of
Hohenzollern used the church building as their burial place. 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 Holy 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 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 Holy 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 the 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
Berlin Palace. File: Berlin Dom Renaissance.jpg|The
Supreme Parish Church with its double-tower façade of 1538 with northerly adjacent parts of Berlin's Palace. Miniature shown in the present church building. File:Berlin Domkirche Innenansicht 1705 (GP Busch n E von Göthe).jpg|View of the interior of the
Supreme Parish Church in 1705 (the only known graphic with this view) File:1736 Domkirche.jpg|The
Supreme Parish Church in 1736 with its new towers
The Supreme Parish Church in its new Building north of the Palace (1750–1893) 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 transferred to the new building. The new structure covered a space north of the palace, which is still covered by the present building. In 1940, the blast waves of
Allied bombing blew away part of the windows. 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 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 demolishing the north wing, the 'Denkmalskirche' – Memorial Church. Compared by some to the Medici Chapel, it had survived the war completely intact but was demolished for ideological reasons by the communist government due to it being a hall of honour for the Hohenzollern dynasty. This resulted in scaffolding for restoration appearing on the church while detonation charges were applied to its undamaged rear. The government also demanded the removal of as many crosses as possible. The demolition and redesign cost 800,000 marks, while the restoration (done on the cheap) cost just 50,000 marks. The Berlin Cathedral Building Society now seek to rebuild the Denkmalskirche. In 1980, the
baptistery and wedding church reopened for services. The restoration of the nave began in 1984. On 6 June 1993, the nave was re-inaugurated in an event attended by
Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and televised nationwide in Germany. There has been discussion to restore the dome and surrounding cupolas to their original appearance, but this has not occurred due to a lack of funds. File:Berliner Dom Friedrichsbrücke um 1900.png|Berlin Cathedral with the northern wing 'Denkmalskirche' – Memorial Church, and the
Berlin Palace in the background (c. 1900) File:Berliner Dom seen from James Simon Park.jpg|Berlin Cathedral without the northern wing (2019) File:Berliner-Dom-1905-Grundriss.jpg|Floor plan of the Cathedral with the now demolished northern wing (on the left) File:Berlin Cathedral Church Berliner Dom tunliweb 04.jpg|The reconstructed dome, 2016 File:Berliner Dom 002.jpg|View into the church, 2013 File:.00 1039 Berliner Dom, Altar.jpg|The altar, 2010 File:Exterior of Berlin Cathedral 05.jpg|The entrance portal, 2017 File:BerlinerDomFotoThalerTamas4.jpg|Hohenzollern
crypt (
Hohenzollerngruft), 2016 File:Dom Berlin Gruft 115.jpg|The sarcophagus of Margrave Philipp Wilhelm von Brandenburg-Schwedt, 2006 == Music ==