On August 15, 1248, construction of Cologne Cathedral began. It was intended to house the relics of the Three Wise Men.
The Cologne Cathedral “St. Peter and St. Mary“ is among the most famous Gothic cathedrals.
In 1996, the church was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Today it is visited annually by millions of believers and tourists from all over the world and is among the symbols of medieval church architecture.
Its construction lasted from 1248 to 1437, as well as at a later stage from 1842 to 1880. In the period from 1880 to 1884, it, with its 157 m, was the tallest building in the world. Today it is the second tallest church in Germany (after Ulm Cathedral). It is the central church of the Roman Catholic Cologne Archbishopric.
It was built on the site of the city's old Carolingian cathedral, consecrated in 873, which in turn was located on the foundations of an early Christian temple. Cologne was one of the richest and most politically powerful cities in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages. In 1164, the Archbishop of Cologne, Reinald von Dassel, triumphantly entered Cologne with the relics of the Three Magi, which had previously been kept in a Milanese monastery. Reinald von Dassel received them from Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, in which way the emperor thanked the archbishop for the military assistance he had provided him in the conquest of Milan during the Italian Campaign. A special sarcophagus of gold, silver and precious stones was made for them. As the guardian of the relics, Cologne acquired a high rank in the Western Christian world.
In 1248, when the Archbishop of Cologne, Conrad von Hochstadten, laid the first stone in the foundation of a cathedral befitting its famous relics, one of the longest construction projects in European construction began, completed in 1880.