Basilica of St Apostles

This guide to the Basilica of St Apostles in Cologne opens with a break from convention: its altar faces west rather than east, a choice made deliberately by Archbishop Pilgrim, who led Cologne from 1021 to 1036 and modeled his church on old Saint Peter's in Rome. It follows a fire that swept the city around 1192, the cloverleaf-shaped choir raised in its place, and the bombing that later gutted the building down to its walls. Stand in the rebuilt eastern choir and consider which direction this church was originally built to face.