Month: August 2017

Throughout this trip, we have worshiped in some impressive churches and climbed some very high bell towers. But non of them compared to the Kölner Dom (Cathedral). As we approached the city of Köln by train, it was the one thing that stood out. It towered over the rest of the building and made them look small. The Kölner Dom stands at 157m (515ft), which is absolutely massive

Worshiping in the Cathedral was quite cool experience. We attended Catholic high mass which included burning incense and singing songs I didn’t know the words to. The accustics were great; the organ sounded so full and chilling.

After the service we were able to climb all 533 steps (I didn’t count, there was a sign) of a spiral staircase to a platform at the base of the spire 100m (330ft) high. The view from the top was amazing, because you could see the whole city. The details at the top of the cathedral were simply mesmerizing. It looked like there was so much thought put in to every statue and design. The cathedral was completed in 1880, when we had at least mostly modern construction methods, but it was hard to imagine how they planned on completing this giant when work began in 1248.

The Kölner Dom has been my favorite cathedral that I have visited.

Going to Wittenberg and getting to Worship in the church there on the 500^th anniversary of the reformation was a pretty cool experience. It was interesting to be in the very place where Luther started the change that engendered my own branch of Christianity. Continue reading “Wittenberg Church”

The Kölner Dom was absolutely magnificent. It was the very first thing you could see as you walked out of the train station in Köln and you couldn’t miss it. It rose far above any other surrounding buildings with its twin spires stretching over 150 meters tall. During our entire stay, it never got old just looking up at it. Going to the top, as you can imagine, was an incredible view itself in addition to the ornate carvings over every piece of stone all the way to the top. Continue reading “The Kölner Dom”

I’m going to be straight up with you, Germany has held a lot of surprises for me. Things that I didn’t expect, things that I didn’t know would be here, things that I didn’t even know existed, have all popped up throughout my time here. I arrived here not thinking that I knew everything, but neither was I aware of how many things I was completely unaware of. I like to think that I’ve adapted quickly and managed to readjust how I perceive my current environment, but there’s still so much that I have yet to pick up on. From the way that certain words are pronounced, to the different kinds of foods available, to the ticks and bits of micro-behaviors that differentiate how an American acts from how a German acts, there is a lot that I’m still learning. With that said, High Mass at the Köln Cathedral was quite an experience for me.

Continue reading “My Two Cents on the Scents of Incense”

The highlight of our trip to Cologne was the Cathedral. We visited the Cathedral twice, once as tourists and once to worship. Attending High Mass at the Cologne Cathedral was my first time attending a Catholic service and there were some similarities that I noticed with Protestant services. Continue reading “Blog Post #4”

On a typical Sunday morning, I am at church by 8 AM. I do not groan or complain because I have to get up early, but I get to church ready to worship God in a similar way to how it would have been done after the Reformation in 1517 even though we have an organ, microphones, and the like today. It has been 500 years since Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the Schloss Kirche and today I worshipped at that church.

Continue reading “The Place of Reformation”