Jerusalem's Church

Jerusalem Church Church of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel (1944/45) Jerusalemskirche (de) Kirche zu den Erzengeln Michael und Gabriel (1944/45)
Jerusalem Church in 1906, seen from south (Lindenstraße), view into Jerusalemer Straße with Lindenstr. continuing to the right
Basic information
Location	Kreuzberg, a locality of Berlin
Geographic coordinates	52°30′14″N 13°23′43″E / 52.503753°N 13.395166°E / 52.503753; 13.395166Coordinates: 52°30′14″N 13°23′43″E / 52.503753°N 13.395166°E / 52.503753; 13.395166
Affiliation	United Protestant since its reconstruction in 1968, originally Roman Catholic, from 1539 on Lutheran, deserted in the Thirty Years War, Calvinist (1658–1662), a Calvinist and Lutheran simultaneum (1682–1830), Evangelical Protestant (1830–1941), Romanian Orthodox (1944–1945), then destroyed.
District	Sprengel Berlin, Kirchenkreis Berlin Stadtmitte
Province	Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia
Country	Germany
Architectural description
Architect(s)	Giovanni Simonetti (1693–1695), Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1831), Edmund Knoblauch (1878/1879), Sigrid Kressmann-Zschach (1967–1968)
Completed	14th century, repaired 1484, new construction 1695, refurbish 1831, total rebuild 1878/1879, destroyed 1945, new construction 1968
Materials	originally brick, now concrete partly clad with brick

Jerusalem Church (German: Jerusalemskirche, Jerusalemkirche or Jerusalemer Kirche) is one of the churches of the Evangelical Congregation in the Friedrichstadt (under this name since 2001), a member of the Protestant umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. The present church building is located in Berlin, borough Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, in the quarter of Friedrichstadt. Jerusalem Church is fourth in rank of the oldest oratories in the town proper (except of suburbs incorporated in 1920, which are partly older).

A certain Müller, a burgher of Berlin, endowed a chapel in gratitude for his lucky rescue from a Saracen assault during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On 18 October 1484 Arnold von Burgsdorff, Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, issued an indulgence, promising all those helping to restore the chapel 40 days less in the purgatory. The indulgence is the oldest surviving document mentioning the chapel, then consecrated to Mary(am) of Nazareth, the Holy Cross, Pope Fabian, and Sebastianus of Narbonne. The Chapel was then located in the fields about 1 km outside of St. Gertrud's Gate (close to today's Gertraudenbrücke) of the city of Cölln (a part of today's borough Mitte of Berlin) on the highway to Magdeburg and Leipzig (today's Axel-Springer-Straße and Lindenstraße).

The chapel was known for its copy of the Holy Sepulchre, as imagined at that time. This structure within the chapel earned it its name, which in 1540 appeared first in a document (Capella zu Hierusalem). Also the present north-south directed street then ending at the chapel thus got its name Jerusalemer Straße in 1706. In 1484 a warden (Kleuser, literally Hermit) took care of the chapel and collected alms from the passing travellers for the pertaining hospital.