The Church of the Redeemer (from the German Erlöserkirche) is an Evangelical (Protestant)

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

 church in Bad Homburg, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Finished in 1908, the building is outwardly of a heavy, romanesque revival

Romanesque Revival architecture

Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid 19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture...

 appearance, while its interior is held in a neo-Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 style, with rich marble wall decorations and gold mosaic

Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...

s covering the domed ceiling, leading to the church sometimes being called 'Bad Homburg's Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey...

'.

History

The church was built to serve Bad Homburg's Evangelical Christians which around the start of the 20th Century suffered from lack of a sufficient congregation space. Its construction was paid for and the design supervised by Wilhelm II

William II, German Emperor

Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...

, the German Emperor, who had by then made Bad Homburg a summer residence town, and later often came to worship in the church, sitting in his own imperial box with a private entrance. Empress Auguste-Viktoria

Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein

Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein was the last German Empress and Queen of Prussia. Her full German name was Auguste Victoria Friederike Luise Feodora Jenny von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.She was the eldest daughter of Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess...

 also provided the jewel-studded altar which was originally intended for the Church of the Redeemer in the Augusta Victoria

Augusta Victoria

Augusta Victoria is a church-hospital complex located on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem. Augusta Victoria was built in 1907 as a center for the German Protestant community in Ottoman Palestine. The complex, completed in 1910, included the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension with a 65-metre...

 complex in Jerusalem.

Two large church organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

s were installed in the Erlöserkirche, with it having a turn-of-the-20th-century Sauer organ and a new Bach organ based on a 1742 Thuringian model.

External links

• Erlöserkirche Bad Homburg (official church website)