St. Mary’s Church

Description

The Marienkirche or St. Mary’s Church is a Protestant church in Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany in the Brick Gothic style. It was formerly the city's main parish church and was built over more than 250 years, during the Middle Ages.

The church was first built in 1253, just after the foundation of the city, and was one of the earliest examples of a gallery in the architecture of the Margraviate of Brandenburg. An ambulatory hall was built to replace the original choir and a polygonal entrance hall with a sandstone entrance arch built onto the north transept, both between 1360 and 1370. The nave was expanded as a five-bayed construction in the 15th century with painted ceilings in the side bays and a 14-storey new tower façade built around 1450. An eight-pointed cupola was added to the north tower and a crenellated edge to the south tower. On the establishment of the Viadrina University a new galleried sacristy was built between 1521 and 1522 – this was the last major expansion of the building, making it one of the largest Brick Gothic buildings in Germany.

The three large surviving Gothic stained glass windows date to between 1360 and 1370 – they are made up of a total of 117 pictures, each 83 x 43 cm in size, financed by city's citizens of the city and showing the creation, the lives of Adam and Eve, Noah building his ark, Christ's life and the Book of Revelation. and the last pieces of the windows were reinstalled in the church in February 2009.