Pfarrkirche Weißensee
Parish Church
The oldest sections of this Protestant parish church in Berlin-Weissensee date back to when the small one-road village Wittense (Low German for „Weissensee“) was founded by fishermen and hunters in the 13th Century on the eastern shore of lake „Weissen See“ on a trading route connecting the Baltic to Bohemia.
The original wooden church was replaced by a stone church in the second half of the 15th Century on the village green. After the church was modified several times, in 1834 the church tower received a cap that was probably based on a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. In 1863 the church structure was expanded to the East, and in around 1900, the transept and choir apse were established. The church burned out completely in 1943 after a bomb raid. In 1948/49 it was rebuilt in a very simplified form by Herbert Erbs, the tower above the pavilion roof received a simple roof spire. The church has an organ from the company W. Sauer (Frankfurt/Oder) with 15 stops on two manuals and one pedal. The front side of the organ (organ prospect, also referred to as the “face“), along with the altar table, the baptismal font, pulpit, and candelabras for the church were all designed by Werner Richter. The altar crucifix was made by the Berlin art foundry, Fritz Kühn, and the stain-glass windows in the apse windows were designed by painter Gerhard Olbrich. The parish church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, John the Evangelist and St. Catherine.