Brunswick Cathedral

Brunswick Cathedral with Brunswick Lion.

The Brunswick Cathedral (German: Dom St. Blasii (et Johannis), lit. in English: Collegiate Church of Ss. Blaise and John the Baptist) is a large Lutheran church in the City of Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany.

The church is termed Dom, in German a synecdoche - pars pro toto - used for cathedrals and collegiate churches alike, and much like the Italian Duomo, which is imperfectly translated here by the English cathedral. It is currently owned and used by a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Brunswick.

History

Henry the Lion established the original foundation as a collegiate church, built between 1173 and 1195. Among the most important pieces on display in the church are a wooden crucifix by Master Imervard dating from the second half of the 12th century and one of very few huge bronze candlesticks with seven arms, dating from around the 1170s.

The construction of the church was disrupted several times during the various exiles of Henry the Lion, so that he and his consort Matilda, Duchess of Saxony, were both buried in an unfinished church. The limestone statues of them on their tomb in the nave are an idealised representation made a generation after their death, between 1230 and 1240. The cathedral was consecrated on December 29, 1226, dedicated to Saints Blaise, John the Baptist and Thomas Becket. In 1543, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the City of Brunswick, in opposition to Duke Henry V of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, joined the Schmalkaldic League, and the church came into Lutheran use. Its college was dissolved.