Churches

It is known as the "Hagia Sophia of Bad Homburg". And indeed, there are many similarities between the protestant "Church of the Redeemer" and the impressive building in Istanbul. The interior is neo-Byzantine, with rich marble clad walls, and gold mosaics on the ceiling. The six-armed cross of light in the intersecting dome is, however, more reminiscent of San Marco in Venice, while the image of Christ as the Lord of Heaven and Earth above the white marble altar resembles its counterpart in Ravenna.
Empress Auguste Viktoria had originally intended that the altar cross adorned with precious stones should go to the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. She and Emperor Wilhelm II were responsible, both for the idea, and for the financing to build the Erlöserkirche. It was consecrated in 1908 and finally offered the protestant Christians enough room for their church services. When in Homburg, the Emperor himself attended the church, seated in the Imperial Box with its own access. Together with the White Tower, the mighty square towers of Erlöserkirche and those of the virtually neighboring catholic St. Marien-Kirche form the silhouette of Bad Homburg from a distance.

Integrated into one of the wings of the castle, the secularized castle chapel is unprepossessing from the outside, but wonderfully restored in the inside. It was built in 1696 for the protestant-Lutheran Christians in the town, and also served as the sepulcher for the Landgraves. 77 members of the family are buried in the crypt beneath the sanctuary.
When the Erlöserkirche was completed in 1908, the castle chapel fell into neglect, and was only brought back to life by a citizens' initiative. The "Kuratorium Bad Homburger Schlosskirche" collected donations for the restoration, and brought new life to the historic building, which has been used for cultural events since 1989. The Bürgy organ, which dated back to the 1780s but only the front remained, was also rebuilt. It is one of eight organ treasures from different eras that constitute Bad Homburg's reputation as an organ town, and have made the FUGATO organ festival so well-known around the world.

He might have been an absolute ruler, but Landgrave Friedrich II of Hessen-Homburg was a tolerant man when it came to religion. He granted asylum to French religious refugees. Among other acts, he gave 40 Waldensian families 200 morgens of land in Dornholzhausen in summer 1699. Dornholzhausen is now a suburb of Bad Homburg. The "réfugiés" first built a small wooden church, which was replaced in 1726 by the stone church that stands today. A further witness to these times survived along with the church: a French bible dated 1563. The protestant Waldensian congregation has about 1800 members.

Just a few steps from the protestant Erlöserkirche is the main catholic church in Bad Homburg: St. Marien-Kirche on Dorotheenstrasse was consecrated in 1895. It was designed by Mainz-based cathedral architect Ludwig Becker in neo-Gothic style. The walls and arches of the wide nave, the narrow aisles, and the short transept are painted sparingly. The chancel is adorned by a wreath of pointed arch windows.
In addition to the carved altars, three valuable works of art are also worth looking at: a linden Pietà from the Middle Rhine that dates back to around 1380, an oak crucifixion group from the Lower Rhine that dates back to around 1450, and a large, late Gothic crucifix that was probably designed by a Franconian craftsman around 1500.
In 1975, St. Marien-Kirche was fitted with a Klais organ. It combines the modern with the romantic, incorporating registers from the predecessor instrument, and thus enriches the "organ landscape" in Bad Homburg.

Nowadays, Herz-Jesu-Kirche in the Gartenfeldsiedlung in the western part of town, and Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche in the eastern suburb of Gonzenheim belong to the parish of St. Marien. They were built after World War II when the number of Catholics in the population increased dramatically. Herz-Jesu-Kirche, which was consecrated in 1969, is a modern church with 420 seats. It is designed with a nave, a workday chapel, a baptism chapel, and a chapel dedicated to Mary.
Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche, which was built in 1952/53, soon proved to be too small and therefore became the first post-war church in Germany that had to be extended, in 1959/60. The parish community was, moreover, one of the few to demonstrate the courage to decorate its church in a contemporary figurative style.
Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche is home to an extremely rare Walker organ dating back to 1867. It is the only witness to the art of English organ building in the 19th century on the continent. It was originally installed in the English Church, but was no longer needed there. The low ceiling of the church had to be moved a bit to make room for it. The Walker organ was restored in 1994/95, for which the community earned the heritage protection award of the state of Hessen in 1995.

St. Johannes-Kirche is lovingly known as the "Taunus cathedral" as it is the largest church in the Vordertaunus. Located on a hill in the suburb of Kirdorf, its towers rise more than 50 meters in height. It was designed by Mainz-based cathedral architect Ignaz Opfermann in late Classical style with rounded arches, and was consecrated in 1862. The symmetry, identical design of the different parts of the building on both sides of the nave, and the position of the towers are characteristic of this style. The art nouveau painting on the inside walls was created between 1923 and 1925 by Augustin Kolb, a church painter and engraver from Güntersleben, together with his three sons, Waldemar, Alban and Ferdinand.
Hermann Dreymann, a member of the famous organ building family in Mainz, made the heritage-protected organ in 1861. It was restored by Klais in the mid-1960s, and a 3rd manual added.

This protestant church in the suburb of Kirdorf is special for one reason: It was donated by a citizen of Bad Homburg. After spending years as a financial and real estate broker in London, Johann Georg Dippel retired back to Bad Homburg. And realized that the protestant Christians in Kirdorf were in need of a church. Kirdorf used to be arch-catholic, but ever more protestants moved to the suburb when it was incorporated into the town of Bad Homburg in 1902. The "Church of Remembrance" was designed by the architect Heinrich Jacobi and consecrated on August 17, 1913.

The money donated for the church was, however, not sufficient to pay for the interior finish. So other members of the congregation donated the seven round windows that give the church its particularly attractive appearance. The focal point is the stained glass window above the altar, which depicts the Sermon on the Mount.
Emperor Wilhelm II gifted the pulpit, altar, font, candelabra and communion set from the 18th century. They were originally from the Schlosskirche, but were no longer needed there after the Erlöserkirche was consecrated.
In 1988, an organ from the Strasbourg workshop of Alfred Kern was installed in the Gedächtniskirche. It has since featured several times in the FUGATO organ festival.

Predecessor churches had stood on the spot of today's protestant church in the suburb of Gonzenheim since the middle ages. The derelict tower was replaced with a new one in 1845. The new tower actually enabled Bad Homburg's master builder Louis Jacobi to build a new nave onto the tower in 1876.
The church interior was adapted to the taste of the times in the 1930s. Some of these changes were, however, reversed again when the church was renovated in 1977. The interior painting of the church as it is today was the result of renovation works in 1977. The restorers based it on the original color scheme from the 19th century, as can be seen, for example, on the Classical paneled ceiling or the pilaster strips. Remains from the original floral painting are visible to the left of the pulpit. The pulpit and benches have been professionally restored.

It took ten years for what was then parish district 3 of the protestant Erlöserkirche to get its own church. The "Church of Christ" on Stettiner Strasse in the Berliner Siedlung was consecrated in June 1974. It had become necessary because the population of Bad Homburg was growing at a steady rate, even then. The parish gained independence in 1976. The artistically designed worship area of the church is topped by a striking pyramid roof.

The protestant church To the Gates of Heaven" was consecrated in September 1731 in what was then the independent village of Ober-Eschbach. It is set back from Ober-Eschbacher Strasse and has been renovated several times over. The interior renovation at the end of the 1980s, early 1990s was based on the Classical style from the mid-19th century. It was enhanced with artistic decorations designed by the sculptor Christof Krause, who died in 2005, and the painter and graphic designer Margot Lindig. The small organ built by Wilhelm Bernhard in 1849 is a treasure, and forms part of the "organ landscape" of Bad Homburg.

St. Elisabeth is the youngest church in Bad Homburg, and was consecrated in December 1995.  When it was built in the "Leimenkaut" housing area, it marked the end of a temporary arrangement lasting decades for the catholics living in Ober-Eschbach, which was incorporated into Bad Homburg in 1972. The congregation was formed in 1946 following the settlement of, mostly, catholic refugees and repatriates, and was initially allowed to use the premises of the protestant Christians. The St. Elisabeth chapel was built in 1964 as an emergency solution but could only seat 100 worshippers.

The richly decorated Baroque church of St. Martin in Ober-Erlenbach, which has been a suburb of Bad Homburg since 1972, was built in 1765 under the auspices of Count Johann Philipp von Ingelheim. The Baroque high alter and the two side altars were moved in 1808 from the decommissioned Kloster Ilbenstadt to the church, which is very valuable from the point of view of art history.
The romantic organ, built in 1839 by the well-known Mainz-based organ builder Bernhard Dreymann, is a magnificent example of the art of organ building in the 19th century, and is part of the "organ landscape" of Bad Homburg. It was restored in 1985, and three registers were added in 1990 that Dreymann had originally planned but never installed.