Church of St. Peter and Paul

About the building

On Rathausgasse, wall to wall with the town hall, stands a church whose forms point more to France than to Bern. Today it is the parish church of the Christian Catholic congregation of Bern and at the same time the cathedral of the Christian Catholic bishop of Switzerland. The bishop's chair stands in the choir.

Since the Reformation the Catholics of Bern had had no church of their own. After 1798 they were allowed to celebrate Mass in the choir of the Minster, and from 1804 in the French Church. The new building was pushed through by the Catholic priest Antoine Baud, and the Reformed government provided the plot next to the town hall free of charge. According to English Wikipedia, the granary of St. Johannsen had stood there before. The plans came out of an international competition. The church was designed by Édouard Deperthes of Reims, who was only 23 when the project began; English Wikipedia names H. Marchal alongside him and Emmanuel Müller as site manager.

Construction began in 1858, and the first service was held on 13 November 1864. After the First Vatican Council, some Swiss Catholics broke with Rome and founded the Christian Catholic Church. During the Kulturkampf, St. Peter and Paul passed to the new congregation, in 1875 according to Wikipedia and in 1874 according to the congregation itself.

Sources judge the style differently. German Wikipedia sees imitated forms of Romanesque and early Gothic; the congregation speaks of 'dogmatic Gothic Revival' and describes the building as a French cathedral seen through 19th-century eyes. The ceiling paintings and coloured windows date from the Art Nouveau period. Work on the bell tower and south facade followed in 1965–1967, and the choir was redesigned in 1998. The organ was built by Friedrich Goll of Lucerne in 1885; in 2011 it was restored and returned to its original state. Information on the bells is contradictory: Wikipedia lists three bells from the Rüetschi foundry, while the congregation writes that the church has no large bells.

A detail in the choir: a transparent veil from 1998 that floats freely in the space and shows Mary as the Mother of God.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Christkatholische Kirchgemeinde Bern: Kirche St. Peter und Paul · Wikipedia (de): St. Peter und Paul (Bern) · Wikipedia (en): Church of St. Peter and Paul, Bern · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Untere Altstadt, alle Adressen (Liste ohne Einzelbeschreibung) · Wikidata: Q684054