Trier - Konstantinbasilika

Founded by the Romans around 30 BC as "Augusta Treverorum", Trier claims, just like Xanten, Cologne, Worms, Speyer... to be the oldest existing German city.

Trier, the center of a diocese already within the 3rd century, was destroyed by the Alemanni (275), rebuilt under Constantine the Great, who resided in "Augusta Treverorum".

The Konstantinbasilika ("Basilica of Constantine", "Aula Palatina") was built by Constantine the Great around 310 and at that time was part of a larger repräsentativ palace complex.

The Aula fell into ruins, but got fortified and used as a residence for the Bishops during the Middle Ages. Within the 17th century Archbishop Lothar von Metternich had a Baroque palace built just next to the Aula and even incorporated it into this palace.

When Prussia´s political influence flooded the Rhineland, Friedrich Wilhelm IV ("Frederick William IV of Prussia") ordered the building to be restored to its original Roman state. As Prussia was a rather Protestant shaped power, the structure became a Protestant church ("Kirche zum Erloeser") in 1856, after the reconstruction.

During WWII the building burned down. It got repaired in the 1950s using modern techniques and materials.

The dimensions of this building are impressive: 67 meters long, 27 meters wide, 33 meters high. When Constantine the Great received his advisers and visitors here, all the walls were covered by white marble. The throne was probably placed in the center of the apse.