Berlin Cathedral

Stand beside the river or on the green lawn of the Lustgarten and look up at the great green dome. It rises above the trees, topped with a golden cross and lantern. Below it spread heavy walls of pale and grey stone, carved with figures and crowned with smaller towers. This is the Berlin Cathedral. Up close, it feels less like a quiet church and more like a statement in stone.

The cathedral sits on Museum Island, beside the river Spree, in the center of Berlin. Despite its size and its name, it is not the seat of a bishop. It is a large parish church of the Protestant faith. Many people call it the largest Protestant church in Germany.

The building you see was completed in 1905. The architect was Julius Raschdorff. The work was ordered by Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German emperor. He wanted a grand church that could stand as a Protestant answer to the great Catholic cathedrals of Europe, and that would honor his own family, the Hohenzollerns.

The style is rich and heavy, looking back to the churches of the Italian Renaissance and the Baroque. The front is layered with columns, arches, and statues. Stone figures of religious reformers and angels look down from the heights. Everything is built to impress, to fill the eye, and to lift the gaze upward to the dome.

Step inside and the space opens far above you. The main hall stands beneath the dome, ringed with galleries, marble, and gold. Light falls from tall windows. Carved stone, painted scenes, and a great pulpit of dark wood draw the eye around the room. The decoration is dense and detailed wherever you look.

High on one wall stands the organ. It was built by the maker Wilhelm Sauer and has more than seven thousand pipes. When it plays, the sound fills the whole stone hall. Concerts are held here through the year, and the organ remains one of the largest of its time in the country.

Below the floor lies the crypt of the Hohenzollern family. This is one of the most important royal burial places in Europe. Nearly a hundred members of the dynasty rest here, in coffins ranging from plain boxes to grand cases of metal and stone, spanning several centuries of Prussian and German rule.

To see the city, climb the stairs to the walkway around the dome. The steps wind upward inside the structure, and the climb takes some effort. At the top, an open gallery circles the base of the dome. From there you look out over Museum Island, the river, the rebuilt palace, and the spread of central Berlin.

The cathedral has not always looked as whole as it does now. In 1944, during the Second World War, a bomb struck the dome and fire broke out. The building was badly damaged and left open to the weather for years. Through the long division of the city, it stood wounded in East Berlin.

Repair work was slow and difficult. It went on for decades, carried out in stages. The main hall was reopened in 1993, after reunification. Some of the original decoration was simplified during the rebuilding, but the great scale and the grand feeling of the place returned.

Take a slow turn around the inside before you go. Look up into the dome, where painted scenes curve overhead. Notice how the gold catches the light, how voices and footsteps echo in the height. Whether or not you share the faith, the room is built to make a person feel small beneath something larger.

Then step back outside, onto the lawn or the bridge over the river. The green dome, the cross, and the carved stone stand against the sky. This church was meant to glorify an emperor and his line. The emperor is long gone, the empire with him, but the building still draws every eye on the island, just as it was built to do.