Fulda Cathedral

About

Set at the heart of Fulda's Baroque quarter, the cathedral was once the abbey church of Fulda Abbey, a monastic foundation that lay at the centre of early Christian mission to the German lands. Its dedication to Christus Salvator carries the older monastic memory into the present.

The present church was designed by Johann Dientzenhofer and rises on the site of the earlier Ratgar Basilica, once the largest church north of the Alps. Built between 1704 and 1712 at the commission of Prince-Abbot Adalbert von Schleifras, its interior arrangement consciously echoes Saint Peter's in Rome, which Dientzenhofer had studied on a journey there.

The cathedral preserves the tomb of Saint Boniface, the eighth-century English monk-bishop whose preaching and martyrdom shaped the Christianity of central Europe. His crypt remains a major place of pilgrimage and the focal point of the diocese's spiritual life.

In 1752 the abbey church was raised to a cathedral when the Diocese of Fulda was erected, and although the abbey itself was dissolved in 1802, the church has continued without interruption as the bishop's seat. It survived a tower fire in 1905 and damage from the air raids of the Second World War, reopening after restoration in 1954.

History

The abbey at Fulda was founded in 744 by Saint Sturm at the direction of Saint Boniface, and after Boniface's martyrdom in 754 the church that rose here, the Ratgar Basilica, once the largest north of the Alps, became his burial place and a centre of pilgrimage. By the early eighteenth century that older church was judged inadequate, and Prince-Abbot Adalbert von Schleifras commissioned the architect Johann Dientzenhofer, fresh from studying Saint Peter's in Rome, to raise a new Baroque abbey church on the site. Building began in 1704 and the church was dedicated on 15 August 1712. The Diocese of Fulda was created in 1752, making the church a cathedral, and although the abbey itself was dissolved in 1802 the cathedral has continued without interruption as the bishop's seat.

Significance

Fulda Cathedral is the most important shrine of Saint Boniface in Christendom, and pilgrims still come to his tomb in the crypt beneath the choir. Each June the Diocese of Fulda gathers pilgrims from its parishes for the Bonifatiuswallfahrt, a pilgrimage to his tomb held on a Sunday near his feast day, and the German Bishops' Conference holds its autumn plenary assembly in Fulda most years, weaving the cathedral into the wider life of the Catholic Church in Germany.

Architecture

Baroque, designed by Johann Dientzenhofer (1704-1712), its interior arrangement consciously modelled on Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome