Tasks & Statutes

The deep ties to the spiritual roots of the Combined Cathedral Chapter are still vividly evident in the 21st century. At the churches owned by the chapter in Merseburg, Naumburg and Zeitz, there is a thousand-year-old tradition of worship and pastoral care. The preservation of the places of worship and the promotion of an active congregational life are among the most important goals of the foundation's work.

From time immemorial, important churches have also been the bearers of high quality contemporary art. It is therefore a natural concern of the chapter to involve contemporary artists of high national and international repute, such as Neo Rauch, Michael Triegel, Thomas Kuzio and Heinrich Apel, in the design of its church rooms and associated buildings.

Cathedral monasteries were also places of education in the Middle Ages. The cathedral schools established in Merseburg and Naumburg as early as the 11th century live on today in both cities as cathedral grammar schools, with which there is still close contact in the area of school ceremonial and concrete educational projects. The traditional connection of the cathedral monasteries to the three important central German universities in Halle, Leipzig and Jena, in the geographical centre of which the chapters sites are located, is the basis for a dense network of cooperation with these centres of research and education. The European Romanesque Centre research institute is located in the enclosure of Merseburg Cathedral.