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Cologne Cathedral Facts & Worksheets

Cologne Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

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In Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, there is a Catholic cathedral called Cologne Cathedral. It houses the Archbishop of Cologne and the Archdiocese of Cologne’s administration. The Cathedral obtained the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation in 1996.

See the fact file below for more information on Cologne Cathedral, or you can download our 31-page Cologne Cathedral worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

COLOGNE CATHEDRAL

  • Christian churches have existed on the site of the Cologne Cathedral since the fourth century. Construction on the present Cathedral, built in the Gothic style in imitation of French church architecture, started immediately after a fire destroyed an older cathedral in 1248.
  • Although the choir was dedicated in 1322, construction continued until 1560. The project stalled for centuries, with a large wooden crane at the top of the south tower, 184 feet (56 meters) above the ground. 
  • During the French Revolution, troops occupied Cologne and used the Cathedral as a stable and hay barn.
  • It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne, under the administration of the Roman Catholic church. It was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1996 and is a well-known example of Gothic architecture and German Catholicism. 
  • It is Germany’s most famous landmark, with an average of 20,000 tourists per day. The Cathedral is the second-highest church in Europe after Ulm Minster and the third-tallest church overall in the world at 515 ft. Additionally, it is the world’s tallest twin-spired church. It features the second-tallest spires and is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. 
  • The Cathedral has the most prominent façade of any church worldwide, thanks to the towers supporting its two enormous spires.
  • Of all medieval churches, the choir has the most significant height-to-width ratio (3.6:1). The choir’s original liturgical appointments still exist today. 
  • The large cycle of stained-glass windows, the most extensive cycle of early 14th century windows in existence in Europe, the carved oak choir stalls, the painted choir screens, the fourteen statues on the pillars in the choir, and the high altar with its enormous monolithic slab of black limestone are among these. They are also thought to be the largest in any Christian church.

HISTORY

ANCIENT SITE

  • There were several earlier buildings on the site before construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248. It is situated on the site of a Roman temple from the fourth century, which was later followed by the “oldest cathedral,” a square church built by Maternus, the first bishop of Cologne to convert to Christianity. 
  • The “Old Cathedral,” a second cathedral constructed on the property, was finished in 818 C.E. On April 30, 1248 it was destroyed by fire.

MEDIEVAL BEGINNING

  • Relics of the Three Kings that Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, had seized from Milan in Italy were acquired by Rainald of Dassel, the Archbishop of Cologne, in 1164. Because of their immense religious significance, the relics regularly attracted pilgrims from all over Christendom.
  • They had to be housed appropriately. The demolition of the previous five-aisled cathedral led to the start of a building program in the new Gothic style, which the French Cathedral of Amiens heavily influenced. 
  • On August 15, 1248, Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden laid the cornerstone. Master Gerhard oversaw the completion of the eastern arm, which was dedicated in 1322 and walled off by a temporary wall so that it could be used while construction was ongoing.
  • Under Master Michael, construction on the west front began in the middle of the fourteenth century. When construction ended in 1473, the south tower was finished up to the height of the bell tower and was topped with a massive crane destined to stand for 400 years as a landmark in Cologne. 
  • The heart structure between the west front and the eastern arm was occasionally worked on, but during the sixteenth century, this stopped.

19TH CENTURY COMPLETION

  • It was decided to finish the Cathedral with the support of the Prussian Court because of nineteenth-century romantic enthusiasm for the Middle Ages and inspired by the discovery of the original layout for the facade. 
  • The Central-Dombau Verein, established in 1842, generated two-thirds of the massive costs (about US$ 1 billion in today’s money), with the Prussian state contributing the final third, making it possible through community work.
  • Building was resumed in 1842 using the original layout of the surviving medieval plans and drawings and more modern construction techniques, like iron roof girders. The towers were constructed, and the nave was finished.
  • In 1880, 632 years after work had started, the largest cathedral in Germany was finished and commemorated as a national holiday. Emperor Wilhelm I was there for the event.

WORLD WAR II AND POSTWAR HISTORY

  • Despite 14 aerial bombing attacks during World War II, the church remained intact in a city that had been completely leveled. In 1956, the repairs to the building were finished. 
  • Emergency repairs made in the northwest tower’s base using subpar brick from a nearby battle ruin were still clearly apparent in the late 1990s as a memorial of the war. As wind, rain, and pollutants steadily chip away at the stones, repair and maintenance work is nearly always done in some section of the building.
  • The south transept window of the Cathedral received a brand-new stained glass on August 25, 2007. The window, which has 113 square meters of glass, was made by German artist Gerhard Richter. 
  • Since the destruction of the original window in World War II, the space has been temporarily replaced with plain glass. It is composed of 11,500 equally sized colored glass pixels, which are composed of colored glass. 
  • Joachim Cardinal Meissner, the Cathedral’s archbishop, had preferred a symbolic representation of Catholic martyrs from the twentieth century for the window but could not attend the opening.

21st CENTURY

  • Pope Benedict XVI visited the Cathedral on August 18, 2005, as part of the World Youth Day celebrations while on an apostolic tour of Germany. During this time, the Cathedral was visited by an estimated one million pilgrims. 
  • The London Philharmonic Choir and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra played Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis live on television from the Cologne Cathedral as another World Youth Day event. Sir Gilbert Levine directed the performance.

ARCHITECTURE

  • Cologne Cathedral has the third-biggest church interior in the world while having the world’s most extraordinary western facade. 
  • The design of the ground plan, the style, and the width-to-height ratio of the central nave, is very similar to that of the Amiens Cathedral. 
  • Like other Gothic cathedral plans, Cologne Cathedral is shaped like a Latin cross. One of the highest Gothic cellars in the world, almost as tall as the that of Beauvais Cathedral is supported by two aisles on either side of the building.
  • Flying buttresses in the French style support the vault’s outside outward thrust. A single ambulatory lies at the eastern end, and the second aisle leads into a chevet with seven radiating chapels. 
  • The interior of the medieval choir is more diversified and less mechanically designed than the structure from the nineteenth century. 
  • A very tall arcade and a delicate, thin triforium gallery, both lit by windows and featuring intricate tracery that blends with the windows above, are arranged in a French-inspired manner.
  • The tall shafts that extend uninterrupted from the floor to their capitals at the spring of the vault connect the entire structure. The vault has a plain quadripartite design. 
  • The carved stalls and many other historic fixtures are still in the choir. A 12.5-foot-tall stone monument of Saint Christopher faces the area where the Cathedral’s original entrance stood before it was finished in the late nineteenth century. 
  • Many nineteenth-century stained-glass windows adorn the nave, including a group of five on the south side known as the Bayernfenster, a gift from Ludwig I of Bavaria, and a set characteristic of the German painting style of the time.

TREASURES OF COLOGNE CATHEDRAL

SHRINE OF THE THREE KINGS

  • The Shrine of the Three Kings, an enormous golden sarcophagus from the thirteenth century and the most significant shrine in Western civilization, is the most well-known piece of art in the Cathedral. Tradition holds that it contains the bones of the Three Wise Men and clothing that dates back 2,000 years. These artifacts put the city on the pilgrimage map.
  • The Three Magi relics were transported from Milan to the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Cologne by Archbishop Rainald of Dassel in 1164. 
  • Rainald informed the citizens of Cologne that he was traveling with artifacts of the Magi that had been given to him by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and were taken from Milan after its devastation. It was not generally publicized at the time that Barbarossa had looted the artifacts after taking Milan.
  • Their symbolism—that the holder of the Three Kings or the Three Wise Men acquired the Kingdom of Christ and became a kingmaker himself—was primarily what attracted Archbishop Reinald to them. 
  • Every German monarch from that point forward until the sixteenth century journeyed directly from his coronation in Aachen to Cologne to present gifts to these first Christian kings, as Otto IV carried out for the first time when he gave the gold and gems for the shrine’s front end. The Christian kings of Germany desired a similar honor because the Three Kings were the first rulers to be honored by Christ.
  • According to academic Patrick Geary, no Magi cult existed in Milan before 1164. The three unidentified skeletons Rainald of Dassel removed from the Church of Sant Eustorgio were unidentified. Rainald made up the history of the Magi cult in Milan while traveling back to Cologne, and as a result, he named the artifacts as belonging to the Three Wise Men. 
  • The goal was to establish Cologne as the equal of Oxen, the Emperor’s seat, by creating a religion comparable to Charlemagne’s, and by doing so, to ensure the autonomy and position of the archbishops of Cologne.

GERO CRUCIFIX

  • The Gero-Kreuz, a giant oak crucifix with traces of paint and gilding, is located close to the sacristy. It is thought to date from around 960 C.E. It is the earliest significant giant crucifix north of the Alps and among the first important central freestanding Northern sculptures from the medieval era, according to Archbishop Gero.

MILAN MADONNA

  • The Mailänder Madonna (“Milan Madonna”), a wooden sculpture of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the young Jesus, dates to circa 1290 and is located in the Sacrament Chapel.
  • The Marienkapelle, often known as Saint Mary’s Chapel, has an altar of the patron saints of Cologne, featuring an altarpiece by international gothic painter Stephan Lochner.

TREASURE CHAMBER

  • In 2000 the Cathedral’s riches were stored in the Treasure Chamber, a medieval vaulted room from the thirteenth century (north side of Cathedral chancel). 
  • Artifacts include priceless reliquaries, sacred objects, vestments, and insignia from the fourth to the twentieth centuries, as well as medieval sculptures and artifacts discovered in Frankish tombs.

GALLERY OF ANCIENT ART

  • The extraordinarily enormous carved altar, known as Agilolphus, was made around 1520 in Antwerp, which was recognized as the center of this skill. It is displayed inside the Cathedral as part of an exhibition of ancient art. It focuses on depicting in three-dimensional carved scenarios the life and passion (i.e., suffering) of Jesus.
  • Even though the choir benches, also known as choir stalls, are pieces of beauty in themselves, you can only see them through the railings of the ambulatory, which is the hallway behind the choir stalls. The seats, which were carved between 1308 and 1311, are still recognized as the most stunning in all of Germany. These 104 benches make up the most significant set currently in existence. 
  • There are big screens with a collection of paintings covering them above the choir benches. These paintings, produced between 1332 and 1340, are the first examples of the Cologne School of painting. At each column around the choir stall, 20 feet upward the ground, are countless figures standing on little shelves beautifully decorated with multicolored leaves. 
  • The Virgin Mary, 12 apostles, and Christ are all depicted in the statues. The Cathedral workshop was created around 1270 and 1290 when it was at its busiest. Twelve angels stand on canopies over each sculpture, each holding a unique musical instrument.

CHURCH MUSIC

BELLS

  • Three of the eleven church bells in the cathedral belong to the Middle Ages. The first was the 3.8-ton Dreikönigenglocke (also known as the “Bell of the Three Kings”), which was made in 1418, put in place in 1437, and then recast in 1880. 
  • The Pretiosa (10.5 tons), once the largest bell in the Occident, and the Speciosa (5.6 tons), erected in 1448, are two other bells still in use today. The 24-ton St. Petersglocke commonly known as the “Bell of St. Peter”, the largest bell in the world and the largest free-swinging bell, was cast in 1922.

ORGANS

  • With its novel placement, the innovative cathedral organ was unveiled in 1948 during the celebration of the Cathedral’s 700th anniversary.
  • Although a 1948 organ with 68 registers (+ 2 derived stops) and three manuals had been sufficient, the instrument was increased to 86 registers (+ 2 derived visits) with the addition of a fourth manual.
  • After that, additional register modifications and additions were made. The console, created in 1956, was given precise combination system controls in 1984.
  • The Cathedral’s 750th anniversary saw the addition of the swallow’s nest organ, which is situated high up in the nave where an organ would have likely been installed in the Middle Ages if a similar option had been available.

WORLD HERITAGE SITE

  • The Cathedral was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List of significant cultural landmarks in 1996. It was listed as the only Western site on the “World Heritage in Danger” list in 2004 because of proposals to erect many high-rise structures nearby, which would have dramatically affected the area. 
  • Following the authorities’ decision to cap the heights of buildings next to and surrounding the Cathedral, the Cathedral was taken from the list in 2006.
  • Cologne Cathedral is one of the oldest and most significant pilgrimage sites in Northern Europe and is a place to the Shrine of the Three Kings. It is also a World Heritage Site. Visitors can ascend the 533-stone-step spiral staircase to a viewing platform 100 meters (330 feet) above the earth. A beautiful view of the Rhine may be seen from the forum.
  • The Cathedral underwent conservation to deal with the issue of the black discoloration brought on by the sandstone’s reaction with sulfuric acid during rainfall. The result of air pollution is acid rain.
  • Catholic Church of St. Joseph in Washington, D.C., resembled the Cathedral in design.
  • With its ranking as a World Heritage Site and convenient location on popular tourist routes, Cologne Cathedral is a famous attraction for tourists, including those who come on Christian pilgrimages.

Cologne Cathedral Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Cologne Cathedral across 31 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about Cologne Cathedral, a Catholic cathedral located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Cologne Cathedral Facts
  2. Facts Only
  3. At The Moment
  4. Myth
  5. Unlocking Meaning
  6. How Did You Feel?
  7. Protect It!
  8. What Is Your Opinion?
  9. Change Through Time
  10. What!?
  11. Promotion Time

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Cologne in Germany famous for?

The Cologne Cathedral is a very tall building. It is one of Europe’s biggest cathedrals. Many people visit it from other places. It is also one of Cologne’s most well-known landmarks.

Why Cologne Cathedral is black?

The black color on old buildings is not from a coating or dirt. It is a natural process. When rain hits sandstone, it creates sulphuric acid. This reacts with the stone and darkens it over time, as seen on many historic structures.

Why did the Allies bomb Cologne?

The purpose of the raids was to lower morale in Germany in order to victory for the allies. The RAF Bomber Command head, Arthur Harris, believed that this would be an effective way to win the war.

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