St. Castor collegiate church

The former collegiate and current parish church of St. Castor with its mighty towers still dominates the town. For visitors to Karden interested in art history, the eastern part of the church - choir with apse, flanking towers and transept - which was begun in 1183, offers the wealth of architectural forms, colours and ornaments of Romanesque architecture. The nave with the two side aisles was completed around 1300 in the early Gothic style. In 1699, the Electoral Court architect Sebastiani raised the west tower by two storeys and placed the Baroque helmet with lantern on top. The late Gothic altar shrine with the Adoration of the Magi - fired from local clay around 1420 - and the three baroque organs by Johann Michael Stumm from 1728 are representative of the rich interior decoration of the church. Only the south wing of the Gothic cloister has been preserved.

The collegiate church lies in the middle of the histor. Collegiate district of Karden. The district of Karden looks back on a history of more than 2000 years. Treverians, Romans and Franks successively settled the Moselle valley and the heights of the Eifel and Hunsrück. As early as 350 AD, Castor, a priest from Aquitaine (southern France), founded the first Christian community here in the Roman VICUS CARDENA. During the Middle Ages and until secularisation in 1802, the provost of the collegiate monastery of St. Castor administered a fifth of the old archbishopric of Trier as archdeacon from Karden. For visitors to Karden interested in art history, the collegiate district offers many remarkable houses.

Right next to the collegiate church is the Collegiate Museum. The museum building itself is a document of history. Built in 1238, it is part of the Abbey District. The numerous exhibits document around 2000 years of local history with interesting and noteworthy finds from Celtic, Roman and Frankish times. Art treasures from the former collegiate monastery of St. Castor are also on display.