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die kirche des allmächtigen gottes

I read the above as "The church the almighty god" but if you plug this into google translate, you get:

The Church of Almighty God

Now, why does 'des' mean of here?

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    It's a good idea to use proper capitals avoid confusion. Both Kirche and Gottes are nouns so they are capitalized in German.
    – RDBury
    Commented Nov 24, 2021 at 21:25

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"des" is simply the genitive form of the definite article "der/die/das", and German encodes possession/attribution between noun phrases as a genitive. English does the same, but since there are (almost) no nominal inflections left, prepositions are used as case hints ('of' hints at a genitive function, 'to' at a dative). Therefore, "A des B" (or "A der B" if B is feminine or plural) usually corresponds to "A of B".

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  • German can also use the article where English leaves it out, especially with the genitive. That said, I don't think using an article with Gott is that common, as least for monotheists. But an article is generally needed when you'd use one in English.
    – RDBury
    Commented Nov 24, 2021 at 21:19
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    An article is commonly used with Gott when prefixed with an adjective. "Kirche Gottes" but "Kirche des allmächtigen Gottes", "Geist Gottes" but "Geist des lebendigen Gottes" and so on.
    – Tilman Schmidt
    Commented Nov 25, 2021 at 1:26

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