Berliner Dom is the colloquial name for the Evangelical Protestant Church of Berlin. It is the parish church fo the Evangelical congregation Gemeinde der Oberpfarr. The Berlin Catherdaral has never been a cathedral in the actual sense. It has never been the seat of a bishop. The Berliner Dom is a baroque Cathedral built between 1894 and 1905. It is located on an island in the river Spree, also known as the Museum Island. The current building is the third church built at this location.
The first church was built here in 1465. This rather modest building later served as the court church for the Hohenzollern family. The church was replaced by a cathedral, built between 1745 and 1747 in a Baroque design from Johann Boumann. It was remodeled into a classicist building from 1816 to 1822 following a design by the Berlin architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
On Emperor Wilhelm II's order, this domed building was demolished in 1894 and replaced by the current Cathedral. Much larger than any of the previous buildings, it was a protestant counterweight to the catholic St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
The baroque building with Italian Renaissance influences was designed by Julius Raschdorff. It is unusually ornate for a protestant church.
Construction of the 114m long and 73m wide Cathedral took place between 1894 and 1905. During the Second World War, the building was hit by a fire bomb which severely damaged much of the Cathedral. A temporary roof was installed to protect what remained of the interior and - despite plans by the East German government to demolish the building - in 1975 reconstruction of the church started. The restoration of the interior begun in 1984 and in 1993 the church reopened. It was consecrated for the second time in 1996.
