The New Church (german: Neue Kirche; colloquially german: Deutscher Dom, meaning "German Cathedral"), is located in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

on the

Gendarmenmarkt The Gendarmenmarkt ( en, Gut Market) is a square in Berlin and the site of an architectural ensemble including the Berlin concert hall and the French and German Churches. In the centre of the square stands a monumental statue of poet Fri ...

across from French Church of Friedrichstadt (''French Cathedral''). Its parish comprised the northern part of the then new quarter of Friedrichstadt, which until then belonged to the parish of the congregations of

Jerusalem's Church Jerusalem Church (german: Jerusalem(s)kirche, Jerusalemer Kirche) is one of the churches of the Evangelical Congregation in the Friedrichstadt (under this name since 2001), a member of the Protestant umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of ...

. The

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

and

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

(in German

Reformed Church Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

) congregants used German as their native language, as opposed to the French-speaking Calvinist congregation of the adjacent French Church of Friedrichstadt. The congregants' native language combined with the domed tower earned the church its colloquial name ''Deutscher Dom''. While the church physically resembles a

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

, it is not a cathedral in the formal sense of the word, as it was never the seat of a

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

. After being heavily damaged during the

bombing of Berlin in World War II A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechani ...

, reconstruction was completed 1988; the church now serves as a museum.

Church and congregations

In 1701–1708, Giovanni Simonetti built the first church after a design of Martin Grünberg. It was the third church in Friedrichstadt, established in 1688, which was a town of princely domination, while the neighbouring old Berlin and Cölln were cities of

town privileges Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

. The Prince-Elector originally only provided for a Calvinist congregation, since they - the

Hohenzollern The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenb ...

s - themselves were Calvinists. But also more and more Lutherans moved in. Therefore, in 1708 the ''New Church'' became a Calvinist and Lutheran

Simultaneum A shared church (german: Simultankirche), simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th-century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in the German-sp ...

. The site for the church was disentangled from the so-called ''Swiss Cemetery'', which had been provided for

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...

s, who had come to Berlin between 1698 and 1699 from their intermittent refuge in Switzerland. The original building had a pentagonal footprint with semicircular apses. The interior was characterised by a typical Protestant combined altar and pulpit leaning against the eastern central pillar opposite to the entrance. Delius Berlin Gendarmenmarkt

In 1780, Carl von Gontard designed and started the construction of a tower, easterly adjacent to the actual prayer hall. His design of the domed towers, a second one being added to the French Church, followed the

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

tradition and received the shape of the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

ian Church of Sainte-Geneviève (now the

Panthéon The Panthéon (, from the Classical Greek word , , ' empleto all the gods') is a monument in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It stands in the Latin Quarter, atop the , in the centre of the , which was named after it. The edifice was ...

), then still under construction by Jacques-Germain Soufflot. The construction of the domed towers aimed at making the Gendarmenmarkt resemble the

Piazza del Popolo Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in Rome. The name in modern Italian literally means "People's Square", but historically it derives from the poplars (''populus'' in Latin, ''pioppo'' in Italian) after which the church of Santa Maria de ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Still under construction the tower of the New Church collapsed. Thus Georg Christian Unger was commissioned to carry out Gontard's plan. Christian Bernhard Rode created the statues, representing characters from the Old and

New Covenant The New Covenant (Hebrew '; Greek ''diatheke kaine'') is a biblical interpretation which was originally derived from a phrase which is contained in the Book of Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 31:31-34), in the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament of the C ...

, which are added to the tower. The dome was topped by a statue symbolising the ''victorious virtue'' (now a post-war replica). The gable relief depicts the Conversion of Sha'ul Paul of Tarsus.Ingrid Bartmann-Kompa, Horst Büttner, Horst Drescher, Joachim Fait, Marina Flügge, Gerda Herrmann, Ilse Schröder, Helmut Spielmann, Christa Stepansky, and Heinrich Trost, ''Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmale in der DDR: Hauptstadt Berlin'': 2 parts, Institut für Denkmalpflege (ed.) (¹1983), Berlin: Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, ²1984, part I, p. 217. In 1817, the two congregations of the ''German Church'', like most Prussian Reformed and Lutheran congregations joined the common umbrella organisation named

Evangelical Church in Prussia The Prussian Union of Churches (known under multiple other names) was a major Protestant church body which emerged in 1817 from a series of decrees by Frederick William III of Prussia that united both Lutheran and Reformed denominations in Pru ...

(under this name since 1821), with each congregation maintaining its former denomination or adopting the new united denomination. Adolf Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel 005

The New Church became famous as a place of Prussian history. On 22 March 1848, the coffins of 183 Berliners, who had been killed during the March Revolution, were shown on the northern side of the church. After an

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exp ...

service within the prayer hall outside an Evangelical pastor, a Catholic priest and a rabbi, one after the other, shortly addressed the audience, before the throng accompanied the coffins to the graves. In 1881, the dilapidated prayer hall was torn down and Hermann von der Hude and Julius Hennicke replaced it with a new one on a pentagonal groundplan, according to the neobaroque design of Johann Wilhelm Schwedler. Otto Lessing designed the six statues on the attic of the new prayer hall. On 17 December 1882, the new prayer hall was inaugurated. In 1934, the congregations of the New Church had united with that of Jerusalem's Church and have become - after further mergers - today's

Congregation in the Friedrichstadt A congregation is a large gathering of people, often for the purpose of worship. Congregation may also refer to: *Church (congregation), a Christian organization meeting in a particular place for worship *Congregation (Roman Curia), an administra ...

(as of 2001). For services it uses the French Church on the opposite side of Gendarmenmarkt and ''Luke's Church'' in Berlin-Kreuzberg. GermanCathedralBerlin

In 1943, the New Church was almost completely destroyed in the

and was subsequently rebuilt from 1977 to 1988. Meanwhile, the German government acquired the building and the site. The church building was updated, deconsecrated and reopened in 1996 as the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the German Federalism, federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representat ...

's museum on German parliamentary history (''Milestones - Setbacks - Sidetracks, The Path to Parliamentary Democracy in Germany''). Berlin Deutscher Dom Apel

The two congregations of the ''New Church'' maintained cemeteries with the two congregations of the neighbouring

(another simultaneum), three of which are comprised - with cemeteries of other congregations - in a compound of six cemeteries altogether, which are among the most important historical cemeteries of Berlin. They are located in Berlin-Kreuzberg south of

Hallesches Tor (Berlin U-Bahn) Hallesches Tor is a Berlin U-Bahn station in the central Kreuzberg quarter, served by lines U1, U3, and U6. It is named after the historic ''Hallsches Tor'' ( Halle Gate) of the Berlin Customs Wall, erected in the 18th century. Overview Th ...

( Friedhöfe vor dem Halleschen Tor).

Noteworthy parishioners

E. T. A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in E ...

* Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, originally also buried in the church, later translated to the cemetery south of Hallesches Tor. * Antoine Pesne, originally buried within the church, later transferred to the cemetery south of Hallesches Tor.

Notes

References

* Ingrid Bartmann-Kompa, Horst Büttner, Horst Drescher, Joachim Fait, Marina Flügge, Gerda Herrmann, Ilse Schröder, Helmut Spielmann, Christa Stepansky, and Heinrich Trost, ''Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmale in der DDR: Hauptstadt Berlin'': 2 parts, Institut für Denkmalpflege (ed.) (¹1983), Berlin: Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, ²1984, part I, p. 217. No ISBN. * Günther Kühne and Elisabeth Stephani, ''Evangelische Kirchen in Berlin'' (¹1978), Berlin: CZV-Verlag, ²1986, pp. 374seq. .

External links

German Bundestag Historic Exhibition

Congregation in the Friedrichstadt (German official website)
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Mitte Former churches in Berlin Museums in Berlin Heritage sites in Berlin Rebuilt buildings and structures in Berlin Church buildings with domes Berlin NewChurch NewChurch Berlin NewChurch Berlin NewChurch Berlin NewChurch Berlin NewChurch