Magdeburg Cathedral

Monastery of St. Mauritius, on the site of which the cathedral was erected, was founded in 937 by Emperor Otto I, and in 946 his wife Edith was buried there. In this regard, in the 950s, Otto I began to seek to establish an archbishopric with a pulpit in Magdeburg (the decision was made at the Ravenna Synod of 967), and at the same time, work began on the reconstruction of the monastery church with the aim of turning it into an imperial cathedral . At the same time, at the request of the emperor, ancient columns were used for construction, specially delivered from Italy for this purpose, and a magnificent evangeliary , the so-called Codex Widtekindeus ( Latin Codex Wittekindeus ), was brought from Fulda Abbey . Otto I, who died in 973, was also buried in the cathedral.

On April 20, 1207, most of Magdeburg was destroyed by a major fire; among other things, the cathedral, the church adjacent to it from the north and the imperial palace were badly damaged. Archbishop Albrecht I von Kefernburg ordered to demolish the ruins of the old cathedral, and in September of the same year a new church building was laid, during the construction of which columns and other material of the previous construction were used.

A number of researchers suggest that the idea of ​​building a new cathedral building in the then new Gothic style dates back to Archbishop Albrecht, who was educated in France , but there is no unequivocal evidence for this theory. From an architectural point of view, the cathedral, in fact, represents a transitional stage from Romanesque to early Gothic architecture: for example, the lower part of the building still has obvious Romanesque features, and only its upper part is executed in the Gothic style. It is also unusual that the new cathedral turned out to be “shifted” by several degrees along its central axis in relation to previous buildings, which is probably due to its orientation towards the grave of Otto I. During the construction, interrupted around 1274 (most likely, financial considerations), it was also decided to build the cathedral higher than originally intended. The central nave , completed in the early 60s of the XIV century, was consecrated in 1363; the western with two characteristic towers was completed only in the second half of the XV - beginning of the XVI centuries.

During the Reformation, Magdeburg was one of the centers of Protestantism , not least because of the too active efforts of Archbishop Albrecht of Brandenburg to trade in indulgences . After his death in 1545, the cathedral was closed for 20 years, and since 1567 it has been used for evangelical services.

In the Thirty Years War, Magdeburg was stormed by the army of Tilly and Pappenheim in May 1631, and almost completely destroyed , while the cathedral building was the last refuge for several thousand residents of the city. And already on May 25, Catholic church service was again held here.

With the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia , the secularization of the Magdeburg Archbishopric was followed, the property and possessions of which were merged into the Duchy of Magdeburg , which departed from Brandenburg-Prussia . During this period, the cathedral continued to be used as the main Protestant church of the city.

In 1806, with the transfer of Magdeburg to Napoleon , the cathedral was again closed for worship, and served the French army as a warehouse and horse stall.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the return of the city of Prussia, the cathedral was restored at the direction of Frederick William III between 1826 and 1834.

The Magdeburg Cathedral, which was seriously damaged during World War II, was rebuilt and re-consecrated on September 22, 1955.

In the fall of 1989, the cathedral became one of the central points of mass peaceful demonstrations that covered almost the entire territory of the German Democratic Republic , eventually leading to the reunification of Germany .

Since 2006, archaeological research has been carried out in the cathedral, during which her remains were discovered in the cenotaph of Queen Edith in a zinc coffin.

Currently, the Magdeburg Cathedral is not only the cathedral church of the Evangelical Church of Central Germany, but also one of the main attractions of the city of Magdeburg, annually attracting more than 100,000 visitors from around the world.

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  East facade of the cathedral

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  General view of the central nave

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  Tombstone of Otto I

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  Sculptures of Otto I and Edith of England

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  The cloister of the former monastery of St. Mauritius

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• Heiko Brandl, Christian Forster, Der Dom zu Magdeburg, Band 2: Ausstattung, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Verlag Schnell & Steiner Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2462-6
• Christian Forster, Birge Tetzner, Der Magdeburger Dom. Grablege Ottos des Großen, Kunst + Reise, Bad Homburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-940825-17-9
• Marco Chiriaco: Der Dom zu Magdeburg - Die Baugeschichte der gotischen Kathedrale anhand des Bauwerks. München 2006, ISBN 978-3-638-67483-6
• Birte Rogacki-Thiemann: Der Magdeburger Dom St. Mauritius et St. Katharina - Beiträge zu seiner Baugeschichte 1207 bis 1567. Petersberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-86568-263-5 .
• Giselher Quast, Reinhard Winkler und Hans-Jürgen Jerratsch: Der Dom zu Magdeburg, DKV-Kunstführer Nr. 415, 11. Auflage München / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-02159-4 .
• Hans-Joachim Mrusek: Drei deutsche Dome: Quedlinburg, Magdeburg, Halberstadt (überarb. Auflage von 1963), München 1983, ISBN 3-7774-3510-4
• Der Magdeburger Dom, Herausgegeben vom Förderverein Dom zu Magdeburg. Edition Akanthus, Spröda 2005, ISBN 3-00-015279-2 .
• Michael Sußmann: Der Dom zu Magdeburg, Kunstverlag Peda Gregor, 2002, ISBN 3-89643056-4 .
• Ernst Ullmann: Der Magdeburger Dom: ottonische Gründung und staufischer Neubau, Leipzig 1989.