Evangelical Lutheran Church

The church was built between 1910 and 1922, the year it was opened to the public. Its designer was Franz Heinrich Schwechten, court architect to the German Emperor Wilhelm II, the same man responsible for the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in Berlin, the church left in a state of ruin as a reminder of the tragedy of war. During the construction of the church, the pavement of a 4-metre wide Roman road was discovered at a depth of 2.40 metres. A few metres from the site of the church, a 13-metre obelisk was discovered in the 19th century, Roman in origin, which belonged to the Villa of Sallust (the so-called Horti Sallustiani), and which today stands in front of the Church of the Holy Trinity of the Mountains.The church has been visited by three popes: John Paul II on 11 December 1983, Benedict XVI on 14 March 2010 and Francis on 15 November 2015.The church façade faces Via Sicilia. Hut-shaped, it has a wall face made of squared stones and is flanked by two square tower bell towers; the belfry each opens on each side with a triple lancet window, supported by small columns. In the lower part of the façade, the portico, with a barrel vault, opens with a large round arch; the interior is accessed through two ports placed laterally from the central polyphora, preceded by stairs. Above the portico, there are three marble statues depicting Christ (centre), St Peter (left) and St Paul (right). In the upper part of the façade, there are seven splayed round-headed lancet windows.The sides of the church are undecorated, with windows in two orders. Behind the church, adjacent to it, rises the belfry, with a square plan and pyramidal tiled roof. Its belfry has two orders of superimposed polyphores, with the lower one higher than the upper one.Access to the church is through an atrium with a double entrance onto the hall; this is divided into three naves, with the central one wider than the side naves, which are also lower and surmounted by a women's gallery that continues on the counter-façade, forming a chancel. The vaults of the nave and women's galleries are ribbed and barrel vaulted, with gilded mosaics and naturalistic and geometric motifs.The central nave ends with a semicircular apse, of slightly smaller cross-section, entirely occupied by the presbytery, raised a few steps above the rest of the church: on the right is the marble pulpit, decorated with bas-reliefs depicting Isaiah, John the Baptist, Stephen the Martyr and John the Evangelist; in the centre is the altar, surmounted by a bronze Crucifix; on the left is the carved wooden ambo. The apse basin has a rich mosaic decoration depicting the Tree of Life with Christ Pantocrator in the centre, inscribed in a mandorla. Outside the chancel, on the right, is the baptismal font, inspired by the one in the Dómkirkjan in Reykjavík.On the choir loft in the counter façade is the Steinmeyer pipe organ opus 1515, built in 1930. The instrument, with electric transmission, has 35 registers; its console, also located in the choir loft, has two keyboards with 61 notes each and a straight pedalboard with 30 notes.