Fulda Cathedral (Fuldaer Dom)

Fulda Cathedral was built between 1704 and 1712 in the Baroque style over the site of earlier churches marking the tomb of Saint Boniface, the English-born missionary bishop who evangelized much of Germany in the 8th century and founded Fulda Abbey in 744 as a base for that mission. Boniface was killed by a group of hostile Frisians in 754 while on a mission near Dokkum, and his body was brought back to Fulda for burial according to his own wishes, quickly establishing the abbey as one of the most important pilgrimage and scholarly centers in the Carolingian world. The medieval abbey church was demolished in the early 18th century to make way for the current cathedral, designed by architect Johann Dientzenhofer in a restrained Italian Baroque style with twin west towers, replacing the Romanesque basilica that had stood on the site for centuries. Boniface's tomb lies in the crypt beneath the high altar, marked by a sarcophagus that remains the focus of pilgrimage, particularly around his feast day on 5 June. The cathedral museum, housed in adjoining rooms, displays the Fulda cathedral treasury, including reliquaries, manuscript fragments, and vestments connected to the abbey's medieval scriptorium, one of the most productive manuscript workshops of the Carolingian era. The building's interior combines white-and-gold stucco decoration typical of German Baroque church architecture with a comparatively sober structural rhythm reflecting Dientzenhofer's Italian training. Restoration work in the 20th century addressed war damage to the roof and facade sustained in 1944 air raids, and further conservation of the stucco interior was completed in subsequent decades.