Parochialkirche

Parochialkirche stands in Berlin’s Klosterviertel as a Reformed church built specifically for a Protestant congregation. Its construction ran from 1695 to 1703. The former prince-electoral immunity district allowed the building to rise despite objections from Berlin’s Lutheran city council. Subtle Baroque forms meet Dutch and Italian influences.

Four apses form a cruciform chancel, while arched windows and a tall pilaster-flanked narthex shape the exterior. Johann Arnold Nering began its plans. After his death, Martin Grünbaum revised them, with Andreas Schlüter, Jean de Bodt, and Philipp Gerlach also contributing. The eighteenth-century tower once carried stone lions and an hourly glockenspiel ending with a lion’s roar.

Firebombing in 1944 gutted the interior, and the undecorated walls preserve a visible reminder of that destruction. An iron cross entered the sanctuary in 1961. Crafted from scrap metal recovered from the ruins, it gives the rebuilt interior a direct connection to wartime loss. Restoration began in the early 1990s, and the 2016 restoration of the golden-sunned dome brought its 52-bell carillon back into sound.