Religious sites in Germany
St. Mary's Church
St. Mary"s Church is the biggest of three town churches in the Hanseatic city of Rostock. St. Mary"s was designated in 1265 as the main parish church and since the Protestant Reformation in 1531 it"s the house of a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Mecklenburg. St. Mary"s Church is a large Brick Gothic church. It was enlarged and modified at the end of the 14th century into the ...
Founded: 1265 |
Location:
Rostock, Germany
St. George's Collegiate Church
St. George"s Collegiate Church is a late gothic structure built by Peter von Koblenz in 1470. The stained glass windows were designed by Peter Hemmel of Andlau. It is the central landmark and one of the first to convert to Martin Luther"s protestant church. It maintains (and carefully defends) several 'Roman Catholic' features, such as patron saints.
Founded: 1470 |
Location:
Tübingen, Germany
Bonn Minster
The Bonn Minster (Bonner Münster) is one of Germany"s oldest churches, having been built between the 11th and 13th centuries. At one point the church served as the cathedral for the Archbishopric of Cologne. Castra Bonnensia was a fortress on the site of current Bonn built by the Romans in the 1st century AD. It survived the breakup of the Roman Empire as a civilian settlement, and in the 9th century it became t ...
Founded: 11th century |
Location:
Bonn, Germany
Neumünster
According to tradition, the Irish bishop Kilian were killed with his fellows at the site of today Neumünster church. Bishop Megingoz built the first church on the site as a memorial for martyrs in the 8th century. The next church was built around 1060 and renewed in 1250. The current Baroque appearance dates from the 18th century (1711-1722). In World War II the church was partly destroyed and restored later.
Founded: 1711-1722 |
Location:
Würzburg, Germany
Speyer Cathedral
Speyer Cathedral was founded by Konrad II in 1030, probably soon after his imperial coronation. It was rebuilt by Henry IV, following his reconciliation with the Pope in 1077, as the first and largest consistently vaulted church building in Europe. The Cathedral was the burial place of the German emperors for almost 300 years. Speyer Cathedral is historically, artistically and architecturally one of the most significant ...
Founded: 1030 |
Location:
Speyer, Germany
St. James' Church
St. James" Church is one of the five principal churches of Hamburg. The history of the church goes back to 1255 when St. James" was a small chapel located outside the Hamburg city walls. After these were extended in 1260, it became part of the Hamburg city territory. Between 1350 and 1400, the chapel was replaced by a hall church with three naves, similar to St. Peter"s. Around one hundred years later, a f ...
Founded: 1255 |
Location:
Hamburg, Germany
St. Nicholas' Church
The Gothic Revival Church of St. Nicholas was formerly one of the five Lutheran Hauptkirchen (main churches) in the city of Hamburg. The church lies now in ruins, with only its tower remaining, serving as a memorial and an important architectural landmark. The church was the tallest building in the world from 1874 to 1876 and is still the second-tallest structure in Hamburg. With the founding of the Nikolai settlement an ...
Founded: 1846-1863 |
Location:
Hamburg, Germany
St. Maria Lyskirchen
St. Maria Lyskirchen is the smallest of the twelve Romanesque churches in Cologne. It was founded in 948, and the present building dates from 1210-1220, with some later additions in the Gothic style. The upper parts of the west front were rebuilt in the 19th century. The church is in the form of a three-aisled basilica, with a chancel flanked by two towers, only one of which was constructed to its full height, and an ea ...
Founded: 1210-1220 |
Location:
Cologne, Germany
St. Peter's Church
St. Peter"s Church, once three-naved, was built between 1227 and 1250 and expanded in the 15th and 16th century to a five-naved Gothic hall church. The church roof was destroyed during the Second World War and was provided with an emergency roof in 1960. Reconstruction was only completed in 1987. Nowadays, St. Peter"s is no longer used as a church. Instead, the 800-year-old light and airy church interior has ev ...
Founded: 1227-1250 |
Location:
Lübeck, Germany
St. Lambert's Church
St. Lambert"s church in Münster was built between 1375 and 1450. It is best known for of three iron cages in which the bodies of Anabaptist leader Jan Matthys and his lieutenants were exhibited in 1535 after their torture and execution. This was the last episode of so-called Münster Rebellion. Jan Matthys was a charismatic Anabaptist leader in Haarlem. In 1534, an Anabaptist insurrection took control of Mü ...
Founded: 1375-1450 |
Location:
Münster, Germany
St. Mary's Chapel
Marienkapelle (St. Mary"s Chapel) is a late Gothic hall church. The construction started in 1377 and was finished in 1480 with the erection of a church tower. Elaborate ornamentation, especially in the arches of the doorways (figures of Adam and Eve by Tilman Riemenschneider – the originals are now on display in the Mainfränkisches Museum, replaced by replicas from 1975). Interior was replaced after fire ...
Founded: 1377-1480 |
Location:
Würzburg, Germany
Magdeburg Cathedral
Magdeburg Cathedral is the oldest Gothic cathedral in Germany. It is the proto-cathedral of the former Prince-Archbishopric of Magdeburg. The 100m high steeples make it one of the tallest cathedrals in eastern Germany. The cathedral is the landmark of Magdeburg and also home to the grave of Emperor Otto I the Great. The first church built in 937 at the location of the current cathedral was an abbey called St. Maurice, de ...
Founded: 1209 |
Location:
Magdeburg, Germany
St. Peter's Church
St. Peter's Church in Hamburg stands on the site of many former cathedrals. It was probably built originally in 1189 and first documented in 1195. In about 1310, the cathedral was rebuilt in a Gothic style and was completed in approximately 1418. The bronze lion-head door handles, the oldest work of art of Hamburg, date from the foundation of the tower in 1342. A second tower, built in 1516, towered above even the Hambur ...
Founded: 1189 |
Location:
Hamburg, Germany
St. Stephen's Cathedral
St. Stephen's Cathedral is a baroque church built in 1688. Since 730, there have been many churches built on the site of the current cathedral. The current church, a baroque building around 100 metres long, was built from 1668 to 1693 after a fire in 1662 destroyed its predecessor, of which only the late gothic eastern side remains. The cathedral's overall plan was made by Carlo Lurago, its interior decoration by Giovanni ...
Founded: 1688 |
Location:
Passau, Germany
Münster Cathedral
Münster Cathedral stands in the heart of the city, on a small hill called Horsteberg. This area, which also contains the Domplatz and surrounding buildings, was the old Domburg. West of the cathedral lies the bishop"s palace and part of the old curia complex along with the current cathedral chapter. The cathedral had two predecessors. The first cathedral (called the Ludgerus Dom, 805-1377) stood to the north of ...
Founded: 1192-1264 |
Location:
Münster, Germany
Erfurt Synagogue
The Erfurt Synagogue was built c. 1094. It is thought to be the oldest synagogue building still standing in Europe. Thanks to the extensive preservation of the original structure, it has a special place in the history of art and architecture and is among the most impressive and highly rated architectural monuments in Erfurt and Thuringia. The synagogue was constructed during the Middle Ages on the via regia, one of the ma ...
Founded: c. 1094 |
Location:
Erfurt, Germany
St. John's Church
The Church of St. John was originally built on the site of the Headquarters of the Order of St. John around 1200. In around 1400, the church was completely remodeled in the late gothic style, giving it its current appearance. The west choir loft was added between 1600 and 1628 and the upper floor was extended to form the town’s largest grain store. The Steinmeyer organ dates from 1885 and was restored in 2004. Ano ...
Founded: c. 1400 |
Location:
Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany
St. Severus Church
The Church of St. Severus, a five-naved early Gothic hall church, was a collegiate church for the regular canons of St Augustine during the 12th century. Today, along with the cathedral, it is Erfurts most famous landmark.
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Erfurt, Germany
St. John's Church
St. John"s Church was built in the fourteenth century as a Franciscan abbey church. Franciscans erected a monastery with a basilica in 1225 on the site of the current church. The monastery grew rapidly and the church was soon too small. As a result, a vaulted Hall church with three aisles was built in its place in 1380. The money for this came mostly from the many funerary endowments resulting from the Black Death in ...
Founded: 1380 |
Location:
Bremen, Germany
St. Martin's Church
St. Martin's Church was founded in 1229. The Gothic brick building has many colourful windows depicting biblical scenes. Of particular interest are the carved pulpit and the baroque organ front. The bells of St. Martin's ring the well-known hymn 'Praise to the Lord, the Almighty', written in the 17th century by Joachim Neander, who was the church's pastor at the time. He gave his name to the Neanderthal valley, now famou ...
Founded: 1229 |
Location:
Bremen, Germany