Tuesday 10 December 2013

Regensburg Cathedral

See here for my general post about my visit to Regensburg.

The High Gothic architecture of the Dom St Peter in Regensburg is almost one-of-a-kind in Bavaria, where even in the Gothic period, bricks were usually used over stone, leading to the development of the Brick Gothic style which can be seen in churches in Nürnberg and Landshut.

The spire of the Regensburg Cathedral is over 100m high, making it higher than the Sacre-Coeur in Paris, the United States Capital in Washington DC, and Big Ben in London. The building is roughly 750 years old and is part of the UNESCO-protected Regensburg town centre.
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The windows are only a little younger, coming in at 800 to 900 years. Stained glass windows were so hugely important in medieval churches because most of the congregation would not have been able to understand Latin, the language in which the services were delivered. As a result, the colourful and vibrant images- depicting the lives of saints, biblical stories, the gospels, heaven and hell - were a fundamental cornerstone of the development of the Christian faith amongst the populace.
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Even for an agnostic such as myself, cathedrals and churches can be places of wonder. Christianity may not be precisely my faith but it is indisputably my culture, and I see these structures as monuments to the extent of human love, inspiration and devotion.

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