The Holy Cross Church (German: Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche) is a Catholic church in the Bornheim district of Frankfurt am Main (Germany) in the Bornheimer Hang settlement. From 1929 to 1950 and again from 2007 to 2015, it was a branch church of the parish of St. Josef in Frankfurt am Main. In between, the church had its own parish from 1950 to 2007. From 2007 to 2025, it was the seat of the meditation centre of the Diocese of Limburg. From 2011 until mid of June 2026, it has been a church location of the International English-Speaking Catholic. The future of the church building after that was still uncertain in June 2026 but a sale was planned. The church is located in the Diocese of Limburg.
The church was built by Martin Weber from 1928 to 1929, on a rise then known as Bornheimer Hang. It was finally completed on 25 August 1929 and handed to the Catholic congregation of Bornheim. It was damaged during Second World War and subsequently rebuilt with the help of donations. The Holy Cross Church is considered an important example of modern Catholic sacred architecture from the late 1920s. Martin Weber's design is attributed to New Objectivity or avant-garde church architecture of the interwar period and is part of the urban planning program New Frankfurt (German: Neues Frankfurt), which is considered part of the New Building (German: Neues Bauen) movement in architecture. The church is in the context of modernist architecture, without belonging to the Bauhaus style in the narrower sense. Its design is similar to the Frauenfriedenskirche (Church of Our Lady of Peace) in Frankfurt-Bockenheim.
Current or most recent use With the reintegration of its own parish into the parish of St. Josef, the use of the church changed fundamentally. The diocese dedicated it from 1 August 2007 as the location of a Holy Cross – Centre for Christian Meditation and Spirituality. The centre was directed from August 2007 until July 2018 by the Franciscan Helmut Schlegel OFM, who worked there until June 2019 as a retreat and meditation leader and priestly co-worker. Since November 2018 until May 2024 the centre was directed by the theologian Samuel Stricker, who worked with a team of contributors, for example from the order of Medical Mission Sisters. In May 2024, Sr. Kristina Wolf MMS took over as acting director of the centre, as Samuel Stricker moved to another position within the Diocese of Limburg. At the end of August 2025, the closure of the meditation centre of the Diocese of Limburg founded in 2007 and its location was announced at the end of the year with a celebration on the Saturday before the fourth Sunday of Advent, 20 December 2025. The last event held at the meditation centre in Holy Cross Church after its official closure on 20 December 2025, was the Midnight Mass at Christmas Eve on 24 December 2025. As the future use of the church had not yet been decided at the end of December 2025, some events continued to be held in January 2026 in rooms such as the crypt.
Following the announcement that the meditation centre would close at the end of 2025, the future use of the church building was still undecided at April 2026. According to the Diocese of Limburg, various options were being considered. At the beginning of December, discussions took place between the parish of St. Josef Frankfurt and the Diocese of Limburg. One of the possibilities was the sale and conversion of the church and the former rectory on Kettelerallee. The kindergarten run by the parish and the rest of the building above it would not be affected. At that time, there were three options for the parking lot with access from Löwengasse. A final decision had not yet been made at the time of the last update of the article.
The uncertain situation facing the church in December 2025 caused sadness and despair among many participants at the meditation centre and members of the parish. This affected, among others, members of groups from the former Holy Cross parish, which existed until 2007 and still used church premises in 2025. A petition in a letter to the diocese called for prospects, participation in the process, and transparent information, especially for these groups. For older parishioners in particular, the journey to St. Josef's parish church was too far. No further German-language Catholic services had been scheduled at the Church of the Holy Cross since the end of December 2025.
Due to the restoration of the interior of St. Leonhard’s Church, services of the International English-Speaking Catholic Parish ave been held instead at Holy Cross Church since May 7, 2011. Even after the work at St. Leonhard’s was completed, this parish continued to hold its Sunday morning service at Holy Cross Church. In December 2025, it was announced that the International English-Speaking Catholic Parish could continue to use Holy Cross Church until the end of June 2026. A move to a different church location was planned for the period thereafter. At the end of March 2026, it was announced that from 21 June 2026, Liebfrauenkirche (=Church of Our Lady) in Oberursel (Taunus) would become the new church location for the English-speaking parish, replacing Holy Cross Church. The English-speaking congregation’s final service took place on 14 June 2026 at the Holy Cross Church, followed by the annual Parish Picnic.
The last time the public had the opportunity to enter the church was on 21 June 2026. As part of the World Design Capital programme organised by the World Design Organization (WDO), the final three of a total of eight ‘theatre strollings’ – held on three separate dates under the title ‘Built To Break – Architecture for All’ – took place in the Bornheimer Hang settlement, led by the performance group Boys* in Sync. with a tour of the space by the participants and a short choral concert by the vocal ensemble Vox Aevi. in the church.
History 20th century Foundation
The Holy Cross church was built in 1929 by the master church builder Martin Weber and is at the edge of the housing development at the Bornheimer Hang. Weber also built the churches of St. Bonifatius in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen in 1927 and of the Holy Spirit in Frankfurt-Riederwald in 1931. With these Frankfurt churches, alongside the Frauenfriedenskirche and the Pallottinerkirche St. Marien in Limburg an der Lahn, Martin Weber stands for "Neues Bauen" (=New Building Style) in the spirit of the Liturgical Movement in the Roman Catholic Church.
The church is located on the eastern edge of the settlement planned by Ernst May as part of the New Frankfurt (German: Neues Frankfurt) urban planning programme, above the Bornheimer Hang (=Bornheim slope). It is the most prominent church in New Frankfurt in terms of urban planning and, visible from afar, shapes the silhouette of the Bornheimer Hang settlement. On the side facing the city, the building forms the end point of Wittelsbacherallee, marking the end of the visual axis. However, it is not strictly axially symmetric, as the street turns right shortly before the portal to leave the wide steps of the church on the left. This urban design gesture is a mixture of representativeness and understatement and is exemplary of the style of New Frankfurt. The church is not an aloof structure, but blends seamlessly into the surrounding buildings. The white plastered façade matches the surrounding residential buildings of the settlement. The original four dials without numbers on the tower clocks, which can still be seen today on the front sides of the tower, can also be found on the former Frankfurt Großmarkthalle (=Frankfurt wholesale market hall) and other prominent buildings of New Frankfurt. Directly next to the church, the central laundry of the settlement was originally located in the archway above Ortenberger Strasse. Martin Weber took up Ernst May's clear design language and, with soaring round arches as a consistent design element both outside and inside, translated the essence of late Romanesque church architecture into the modern age. It blends seamlessly into May's modernism of New Frankfurt and yet stands out as a house of God. According to Helmut Schlegel, the church reflected the attitude to life of the public at the time of its creation, who, after the First World War and the global economic crisis in the 1930s, longed for new hope, space and grandeur.
The community centre originally planned for the Wittelsbacherallee was not built, so there was enough space to build the new church. The Holy Cross Church was the second Catholic church in Frankfurt-Bornheim. The parish was an outsourcing of the later neighbour fold St. Josef, the first Catholic church in Bornheim. The reason why their priest Joseph Höhler decided to build the new church at this location was the expansion of the Bornheim quarter eastward at the Bornheimer Hang, with the new settlement. This resulted in a growing number of Roman Catholics living in the quarter.
After the Catholic community had acquired the two plots of land totaling 6,200 m2 needed for the construction of the church in 1926 and 1927, the church executive committee decided in May 1927 to invite tenders for a closed architectural competition. Four architectural firms were invited: Hans (1872–1952) and Christoph Rummel (1881–1961) (Frankfurt), Richard Steidle (1881–1958) (Munich), Martin Weber (1890–1941) (Frankfurt), and Robert B. Witte (Dresden). The jury consisted of eight people, including the then parish priest, Pastor Höhler, as representative of the parish of St. Josef, the city planning officer Ernst May, and the architect Hans Herkommer. The competition had several stipulations for the church, e.g. the front of the steeple at the Wittelsbacherallee, between 700 and 800 seats, a high altar and two side altars and an organ loft for 150 people. On 3 August 1927 a jury decided in a competition for the draft with the name slope crown by the master church builder Martin Weber (1890–1941). Weber called the building model "slope crown", since the church should crown the Bornheimer Hang (slope).
On 19 February 1928 the construction work began with the turning of the first sod. The foundation stone was laid on 18 March 1928. A deed with text in the shape of a cross, two daily newspapers, a yearbook of Frankfurt Catholics, five Reichsmarks in various currencies, and a bottle of Rhine wine were walled into the foundation stone.
The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on 14 September 1928. On 25 August 1929 the church was consecrated by Ludwig Maria Hugo, the bishop of the Diocese of Mainz, because Augustinus Kilian, the bishop of the Diocese of Limburg at the time, was ill. The name was chosen because there were several places in medieval Frankfurt dedicated to the holy cross. One of these was the chapel of the Hospital of the Holy Cross which was donated in 1343 by Wicker Frosch. Together with the chapel of the monastery of St. Katharinen which was built in 1354, it formed a small double church, the predecessor building of the today's Evangelical-Lutheran Katharinen church. In Holy Cross Church there is a reliquary containing a splinter of the Holy Cross. Until 1950 the Holy Cross parish was financially still a part of the St. Josef parish, with which it has a common church executive committee.
Second World War