St Luke's Church, Munich

St. Luke's Church (link=no or Lukaskirche) is the largest Protestant church in Munich, southern Germany. It was built in 1893 - 1896, designed by Albert Schmidt. St. Luke's is the only almost perfectly preserved Lutheran parish church of the historical Munich. St. Luke's is located on the banks of the Isar, between the Steinsdorfstraße and Mariannenplatz. Although the ground belongs to Mariannenplatz (Mariannenplatz 3), the main entrance is found at the Steinsdorfstraße. The two east towers and the almost 64 meter high dome shape the buildings on the western Isarkai. Although St. Luke's is nicknamed Dom der Münchner Protestanten (Cathedral of the Munich Protestants), the church is not a seat of a bishop.History and descriptionThe history of the Protestant church in Munich is rather short. The first Protestant groups early in the 16th century were banned and suppressed. Bavaria was a predominantly Catholic kingdom under the reigning Wittelsbach family from the time of the Reformation, but in 1799 the Wittelsbach head, Prince-elector Max IV Joseph married Friederike Karoline Wilhelmine; a Lutheran princess, and there was suddenly a Protestant presence at court in Munich. 19th century Munich also became a city with a growing number of immigrants from other regions of Germany, many of them Lutherans. In 1826, there were already 6,000 Lutheran parishioners in the city. The first Protestant church, St. Matthew, was inaugurated in 1833. It was demolished in 1938 by the Nazis and rebuilt after the World War II in another location. The second Protestant church, St. Mark's, was inaugurated in 1877. By the last decades of the 19th century, Munich’s Lutherans were in need of a third, and larger church. But the Bavarian royal family was concerned to protect the Catholic character of the city, therefore the Lutherans were given land on the banks of the river Isar to build St. Luke's. The first stone was laid on 29 June 1893 and the church was consecrated on the first Advent, 1896.