Altenberger Dom

About

The Altenberger Dom (or Bergischer Dom) is the former abbey church of Altenberg Abbey which was built from 1259 in Gothic style by Cistercians. Listed as a cultural heritage, it is located in Altenberg, now part of Odenthal in the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Until 1511, the church was the burial site of counts and dukes of Berg and the dukes of Jülich-Berg. Badly damaged after the monastery was dissolved in 1803 due to the secularisation of Germany, the church was rebuilt with support from Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who decreed in 1857 that it was to serve as a parish church simultaneously for a Catholic and a Protestant parish. The German name has sometimes been translated to English as Altenberg Cathedral, but it was never a cathedral, a bishop's seat.

History: The Counts of Berg settled in the area northeast of Cologne. Their castle was named Berg, in Latin "Mons", later "veterus Mons" in German "Alter Berg" or "Altenberg", situated above the river Dhünn. The castle's name was transferred to the county and the counts, and today the area is called the Bergisches Land. In 1133 the senior line of the counts resettled in Burg Castle, latin...