Lübeck Cathedral
Lübeck Cathedral
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Lübeck Cathedral

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Lübeck Cathedral

Lübeck Cathedral (German: Dom zu Lübeck, or colloquially Lübecker Dom) is a large brick-built Lutheran cathedral in Lübeck, Germany, and part of the Lübeck World Heritage Site. It was started in 1173 by Henry the Lion as a cathedral for the Bishop of Lübeck. It was partly destroyed in a bombing raid in World War II (1942), when the Arp Schnitger organ was destroyed by fire, but was subsequently reconstructed.

It is also famous for works of Bernt Notke and Thomas Quellinus, which survived the bombing raid in 1942. The famous altar by Hans Memling is now in Lübeck's St. Annen Museum. The current church was finished in 1982.

In 1873 the cathedral celebrated its 700th anniversary, when an offshoot of the Lutheran Memorial Beech Tree, in Steinbach near Bad Liebenstein in Thuringia, was planted in the churchyard.

In 1173 Henry the Lion founded the cathedral to serve the Diocese of Lübeck, after the transfer in 1160 of the bishop's seat from Oldenburg in Holstein under bishop Gerold.

The then Romanesque cathedral was completed around 1230, but between 1266 and 1335 it was converted into a Gothic-style building with side-aisles raised to the same height as the main aisle (around 20m).

On the night of Palm Sunday (28–29 March) 1942 a Royal Air Force bombing raid destroyed a fifth of the town centre. Several bombs fell in the area around the church, causing the eastern vault of the quire to collapse and destroying the altar which dated from 1696. A fire from the neighbouring cathedral museum spread to the truss of the cathedral, and around noon on Palm Sunday the towers collapsed. An Arp Schnitger organ was lost in the flames. Nevertheless, a relatively large portion of the internal fittings was saved, including the cross and almost all of the medieval polyptychs. In 1946 a further collapse, of the gable of the north transept, destroyed the vestibule almost completely.

Reconstruction of the cathedral took several decades, as greater priority was given to the rebuilding of the Marienkirche. Work was completed only in 1982.

In 2002 a symposium took place in conjunction with the Lübeck Academy of Music to consider the reconstruction of the Arp Schnitger organ. It was concluded that such a reconstruction would be possible, but no decision has yet been taken. The discussion follows a research project at the university in Gothenburg, Sweden, where a reconstruction of the Lübeck organ has been going on since the mid-1990s. That reconstruction was concluded in 2001 with installation of the replica, including a replica of the organ front, in an earlier abandoned church from the late 1890s, Örgryte church. The church is now rebuilt as a concert hall.

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