Berlin Cathedral - The Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church Residing in The Present Building (1905 To Date)

The Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church Residing in The Present Building (1905 To Date)

• The Supreme Parish Church after Schinkel's remodelling, around 1830

• The Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin, ca. 1900

• The Supreme Parish and Cathedral Church in 1945 after the Soviet conquest of Berlin

• Design by Julius Raschdorff for the Berlin Cathedral

• Facade of the Berlin Cathedral

However, in the 19th century a new building was under discussion since long, but the post-Napoléonic 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 Neo-Renaissance style.

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.

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 main prayer hall was begun in 1984. On 6 June 1993 the big prayer hall was reinaugurated in an event attended by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and televised nationwide in Germany.