Dresden Cathedral, or the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Dresden, previously the Catholic Church of the Royal Court of Saxony, called in German Katholische Hofkirche and since 1980 also known as Kathedrale Sanctissimae Trinitatis, is the CatholicCathedral of Dresden.
Always the most important Catholic church of the city, it was elevated to the status of cathedral of the Diocese of Dresden–Meissen in 1964. It is located near the Elbe river in the historic center of Dresden, Germany.
It is one of the burial sites of the House of Wettin, including Polish monarchs.
History
The church around 1840
The Hofkirche stands as one of Dresden's foremost landmarks. It was designed by architectGaetano Chiaveri from 1738 to 1751.[1] The church was commissioned by Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland while the Protestant city of Dresden built the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) between 1726 and 1743. While the general population of the city was Protestant, its rulers were Catholic. The Catholic Elector built the cathedral for his own use and for the use of other high-ranking officials, connecting it to his home, Dresden Castle, with an ornate high level walkway.[1]
The church was badly damaged in February 1945 during the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War. The building was restored by the year 1962 by the East German government. It was further restored in the early 21st century following reunification, including the rebuilding of the bridge to the castle. Today it is the cathedral of the Diocese of Dresden-Meissen. Free entry is permitted during the daytime.
Frederick Augustus II was King of Saxony and a member of the House of Wettin.
Meissen, is a town of approximately 30,000 about 25 km (16 mi) northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechtsburg castle, the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche. The Große Kreisstadt is the capital of the Meissen district.
A crypt is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics.
Augustus II the Strong, was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1697 to 1706 and from 1709 until his death in 1733. He belonged to the Albertine line of the House of Wettin.
Augustus III was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1733 until 1763, as well as Elector of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire where he was known as Frederick Augustus II.
The House of Wettin was a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its origins can be traced back to the town of Wettin, Saxony-Anhalt. The Wettins gradually rose to power within the Holy Roman Empire. Members of the family became the rulers of several medieval states, starting with the Saxon Eastern March in 1030. Other states they gained were Meissen in 1089, Thuringia in 1263, and Saxony in 1423. These areas cover large parts of Central Germany as a cultural area of Germany.
The Wawel Cathedral, formally titled the Archcathedral Basilica of Saint Stanislaus and Saint Wenceslaus, is a Catholic cathedral situated on Wawel Hill in Kraków, Poland. Nearly 1000 years old, it is part of the Wawel Castle Complex and is a national sanctuary which served as the coronation site of Polish monarchs.
The coat of arms of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was the symbol of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, representing the union of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom and Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The Wawel Royal Castle and the Wawel Hill on which it sits constitute the most historically and culturally significant site in Poland. A fortified residency on the Vistula River in Kraków, it was established on the orders of King Casimir III the Great and enlarged over the centuries into a number of structures around an Italian-styled courtyard. It represents nearly all European architectural styles of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods.
Maria Josepha of Austria was the Queen of Poland and Electress of Saxony by marriage to Augustus III. From 1711 to 1717, she was heir presumptive to the Habsburg Empire. Her sister Maria Amalia became Electress of Bavaria.
Barbara Jagiellon was a Polish princess, member of the Jagiellonian dynasty and by marriage Duchess of Saxony.
The Freiberg Cathedral or Cathedral of St Mary is a church of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony in Freiberg in Saxony. The term Dom, a German synecdoche used for collegiate churches and cathedrals alike, is often uniformly translated as cathedral into English, even though this church here was a collegiate church, not a cathedral.
Balthasar Permoser was among the leading sculptors of his generation, whose evolving working styles spanned the late Baroque and early Rococo.
The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony, was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. Its territory included the areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz.
The Diocese of Dresden–Meissen is a Latin Church diocese of Catholic Church in Germany with its seat in Dresden. It is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Berlin.
The Sophienkirche was a church in Dresden.
Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer was a German representative of neoclassical architecture.
The Fürstenzug in Dresden, Germany, is a large mural of a mounted procession of the rulers of Saxony. It was originally painted between 1871 and 1876 to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Wettin Dynasty, Saxony's ruling family. In order to make the work weatherproof, it was replaced with approximately 23,000 Meissen porcelain tiles between 1904 and 1907. With a length of 102 metres (335 ft), it is known as the largest porcelain artwork in the world. The mural displays the ancestral portraits of the 35 margraves, electors, dukes and kings of the House of Wettin between 1127 and 1904.
The Opernhaus am Taschenberg was a theatre in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, built from 1664 to 1667 by Wolf Caspar von Klengel. It was the first opera house of the capital of Saxony, Residenz of the Elector of Saxony. Seating up to 2000 people, it was at the time one of the largest opera houses in Europe. It was also called Klengelsches Opernhaus and Komödienhaus am Taschenberg.
The Old Catholic Cemetery ) consecrated in 1720, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Dresden, Saxony. It was the first Catholic burial ground established in the town after the Reformation. It is located in the Friedrichstadt district, on the left bank of the Elbe. Due to the vast number of baroque, rococo and neoclassical tombs and monuments, the designated historic landmark is one of the most culturally and historically important cemeteries in the Dresden region.
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