Star Trek is a religion for some, so it’s about time that people have a rendition of the show’s iconic theme song that inspires an appropriate sense of awestruck wonder. Many thanks, then, to Kantor Ralph Leinen for providing what has to be the definitive version, one that, across nearly five and a half minutes, positively thunders throughout the hallowed halls of Aachen, Germany’s St. Donatus Church.
Leinen is the organist at the church, and the translated text accompanying the above video says he was able to play the entire thing after only hearing it once, a feat that proves his fingers have been blessed by Gene Roddenberry himself. Credit should also go to the church’s pipeless organ, however, which produces a rich, robust sound that could make the “Hokey Pokey” sound just as epic. We can only hope that the priest preaches in Vulcan ears.