Cologne belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, the largest religious body, and 15.5% to the Evangelical Church. Cologne is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne. There are several mosques, including the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs run Cologne Central Mosque. Cologne also has one of the oldest and largest Jewish communities in Germany. The city's administration is headed by the mayor and the three deputy mayors. The long tradition of a free imperial city, which long dominated an exclusively Catholic population and the age-old conflict between the church and the bourgeoisie (and within it between the patricians and
History of the Jews in Cologne and established in the 1st century AD, as the Roman "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium" in Ubii territory. It was the capital of the Roman province of "Germania Inferior" and the headquarters of the military in the region. Cologne was an important city in Roman times. H. Nissen assumes a much greater population for Roman Cologne than it was in the Middle Ages, when he estimates it was between 30,000–40,000. It is reasonable to assume that the spread of Christianity in any Roman province was preceded and accompanied by the existence there of Jews. The presence of Christians in Cologne in