Religious sites in Germany
St. Mary's Church
The Gothic spires of St. Mary"s Church reach upwards and towards the heavens, towering impressively in the background of the town hall. First mentioned in archival records dating to 1283, the church was later rebuilt as a three-aisled hall church, and is today considered to have one of the most impressive Brick Gothic interiors thanks to its vaults. Amongst the most impressive features in the church is a choir screen ...
Founded: 13th century |
Location:
Stendal, Germany
Kempten Abbey
The Imperial Abbey of Kempten was an ecclesiastical state of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries until it was annexed to the Electorate of Bavaria in the course of the German mediatization in 1803. Located within the former Duchy of Swabia, the Princely Abbey was the second largest ecclesiastical Imperial State of the Swabian Circle by area, after the Prince-Bishopric of Augsburg. According to the 11th-century chronicles ...
Founded: 752 AD |
Location:
Kempten (Allgäu), Germany
St. Michael Abbey Ruins
The Monastery of St. Michael on the Heiligenberg (Saints" Mountain), was a branch of the nearby Lorsch Abbey. The ruined complex that can be seen today was built beginning in 1023. Within the nave are traces of the Roman temple of Mercury. The monastery was abandoned in the 16th century. The first mention of the monastery is in the Lorsch codex, from the 12th century, which dates the founding of the monastery to 870. No ...
Founded: 1023 |
Location:
Heidelberg, Germany
St. Paulinus' Church
Saint Paulinus" is one of the most important Baroque churches in Rhineland-Palatinate. Constructed between 1734 and 1753, the interior was designed by Johann Balthasar Neumann. The ceiling of the nave features a painting by the artist Christoph Thomas Scheffler. The tomb of the saint after whom the church is named, Paulinus of Trier, is located in the church"s crypt. Based in Germany"s oldest city with a s ...
Founded: 1734-1753 |
Location:
Trier, Germany
Bergen auf Rügen Abbey
Bergen auf Rügen Abbey was a monastery for Cistercian nuns. It lasted from the end of the 12th century to the early 16th century as a Roman-Catholic monastery and then, until 1945, as an Evangelical aristocratic nunnery. The Principality of Rügen belonged to the Bishopric of Roskilde since its conquest by the Danes in 1168, Bishop Absalon of Lund being responsible for introducing the territory to Christianity. ...
Founded: 1193 |
Location:
Bergen auf Rügen, Germany
Burtscheid Abbey
Burtscheid abbey was founded in 997 under Emperor Otto III. The first abbot, Gregor, who came to Burtscheid from Calabria, is sometimes said to have been the brother of Theophanu, Byzantine mother of the Emperor. He was buried beneath the altar after his death in 999, and his date of death, 4 November, was kept as a feast day until the dissolution of the abbey. In 1018 the Emperor Henry II endowed it with the ...
Founded: 997 AD |
Location:
Burtscheid, Germany
St. Jacob's Church
St. Jacob"s church was built in the 11th and 12th centuries outside the fortifications around Cathedral Hill, and was used by numerous Jacob pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela. Initially, the church was modelled around Heinrich"s cathedral and was constructed as a column basilica. In 1771 the baroque facade was added, behind which numerous components from the romanesque period can still be discovere ...
Founded: 1073-1109 |
Location:
Bamberg, Germany
Weingarten Abbey
Weingarten Abbey was founded in 1056 by Welf I, Duke of Bavaria. The name Weingarten (vineyard) is documented from about 1123. He settled it with monks from Altomünster Abbey. In 1126, Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, withdrew here after his abdication; he died the same year and was buried in the abbey church. The monks worked, among other things, at manuscript illumination. Their most famous work is the Berthold Sacramentary ...
Founded: 1056 |
Location:
Weingarten, Germany
St. Maria zur Wiese Church
St. Maria zur Wiese is a Late Gothic hall church founded in 1313. It is made of Soest"s distinctive green sandstone. The stained glass windows are worth of seeing.
Founded: 1313 |
Location:
Soest, Germany
Ratzeburg Cathedral
The Cathedral of Ratzeburg, one of the oldest brick churches of Northern Germany, is a basilica with three naves. Its arches are supported by pillars and it is built in the form of a cross with a choir quadrangle and a halfround apse. The last restoration (completed in 1966) returned the cathedral to its late Romanesque conception, so you can discover most of the unity and integrity of its original design. The cathedral ...
Founded: 1154 |
Location:
Ratzeburg, Germany
St. Mary's Church
The largest church in Bielefeld is the Neustädter Marienkirche, a Gothic hall church dating back to 1293, completed 1512. Historically speaking, this building is considered to be the most precious possession of the town. It was the starting point of the Protestant Reformation in Bielefeld in 1553. A valuable wing-altar with 13 pictures, known as the Marienaltar is also kept inside. The baroque spires were destro ...
Founded: 1293 |
Location:
Bielefeld, Germany
Mariahilf Monastery
The diocesan town of Passau has long been a centre of religious life in Bavaria and Austria. In 1611, Prince-Bishop Archduke Leopold of Austria brought to Passau, his town of residence, a painting of the Mother of God tenderly embraced by the Child Jesus. The painting was the work of Lucas Cranach the Elder, a leading German painter, and was probably produced after 1537. This outstanding painting was greatly admired by t ...
Founded: 1624 |
Location:
Passau, Germany
Mosbach Abbey Church
Mosbach Abbey was a Benedictine monastery, later a monastery of Augustinian Canons. As part of the systematic Carolingian Christianisation of this part of Germany, a number of monasteries were set up, covering between them the whole region of the Odenwald: Amorbach, Lorsch and Fulda, all founded in the 8th century, and Mosbach, the southernmost and least documented. It is first mentioned in a reference in the records of R ...
Founded: 1308 |
Location:
Mosbach, Germany
Ochsenhausen Abbey
Ochsenhausen Abbey was a Benedictine monastery was founded according a legend in the 9th century when there was a nunnery here called 'Hohenhusen', which was abandoned at the time of the Hungarian invasions in the early 10th century. A ploughing ox later turned up a chest of valuables buried by the nuns before their flight, and the monastery of Ochsenhausen was founded on that spot. The first Abbey Church of Ochsenhausen ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Ochsenhausen, Germany
St. Martin's Church
Accordin the legend St. Martin was once imprisoned in a dungeon underneath this church in Worms, which was built in the 12th century. It was the chapter church of the Martinsstift, which no longer survives. Until the 15th century, the Martinskirche was a burial place for the Kämmerer family, named von Dahlberg, whose courts lay nearby in the Kämmererstrasse. The church is a Romanesque church, with red sandstone walls w ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Worms, Germany
Steinfeld Abbey
Steinfeld Abbey is a former Premonstratensian monastery, now a Salvatorian convent. The origins of the site go back to about 920. The first monastic settlement at Steinfeld took place in about 1070, and the Premonstratensians settled here in 1130. It became an important monastery in the German Empire, and established a number of daughter houses across Europe, including Strahov Abbey in Prague. It was raised to th ...
Founded: 1070 |
Location:
Kall, Germany
St. Martin's Church
St. Martin's Church in Biberach was built in 1337-1366 and served as the parish church of Biberach before the Reformation. With the conversion of almost the entire population of the town to Lutheran Protestantism, the church was used for Lutheran services. Then, in 1548 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ordered that Catholic services be resumed. The solution was to divide the church, with Catholic services held in the form ...
Founded: 1337-1366 |
Location:
Biberach an der Riß, Germany
Brauweiler Abbey
Brauweiler Abbey, a former Benedictine monastery, founded and endowed in 1024 by Pfalzgraf Ezzo, count palatine of Lotharingia of the Ezzonian dynasty and his wife Matilda of Germany, a daughter of Emperor Otto II and Theophano. Ezzo and Matilda were buried here, as were their two eldest sons Liudolf, Count Palatine of Lotharingia (d. 1031) and Otto II, Duke of Swabia (d. 1047). From 1065 until his deat ...
Founded: 1024 |
Location:
Brauweiler, Germany
Salem Abbey
Salem Abbey was a very prominent Cistercian monastery founded in 1136 by Gunthram of Adelsreute (d. 1138) as a daughter house of Lützel Abbey in Alsace. Blessed Frowin of Bellevaux, formerly the travelling companion and interpreter of Bernard of Clairvaux, became the first abbot of Salem. The abbey soon became very prosperous. Extensive and magnificent buildings, erected in three squares, and a splendid church were cons ...
Founded: 1136 |
Location:
Salem, Germany
Kamp Abbey
Kamp Abbey was the first Cistercian monastery founded in German territory. It was founded in 1123 by Friedrich I, Archbishop of Cologne, and settled from Morimond Abbey. As the first Cistercian foundation in the region it attracted great endowments and became very wealthy and powerful. It was extremely active in the foundation of daughter houses. Kamp was largely rebuilt in the 15th century but suffered extensive d ...
Founded: 1123 |
Location:
Kamp-Lintfort, Germany