Burgkirche (Königsberg)

After the conversion of the Hohenzollern elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg, also Duke of Prussia from 1612, the first Calvinist service was performed in 1616 by the Hessian court chaplain Johannes Crocius in a hall of Königsberg Castle.

In 1662 the 'Great Elector' Frederick William ordered the building of a new Reformed church and Latin school in the Burgfreiheit quarter near the castle, granting land near a slaughterhouse.

In 1687 the court expanded the grounds for the church by purchasing a garden on the Schlossteich pond north of the former slaughterhouse from Oberburggraf Ahasverus von Lehndorff.

The new Baroque church was built from 1690 to 1696; Johann Arnold Nering modeled it after the sober appearance of the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague.

Commissioned by commerce official Charles Cabrit, the church's portal was designed in 1727 with allegorical sandstone figures of justice, love and, charity.