Marien kirche Website

One of Upper Saxony’s most significant hall churches from the late Gothic era is the Cathedral of St. Mary in Zwickau.

Famous due to its late Gothic Hall construction and valuable art-historical furniture is the Cathedral St. Marien. Before 1200, Zwickau’s St. Marien church—also known as the cathedral—began to take shape. Between 1453 and 1565, the ancient Romanesque Basilica was reconstructed as a late Gothic Hall church. The mission of the Cathedral St. Marien dates back to the Reformation in 1518. Thomas Müntzer served as the priest here for six months in 1520. It is highly probable that during his visit to Zwickau in 1522, Martin Luther delivered sermon in this chapel.

The building was originally built around 1180 as a Romanesque Hall church but was converted between 1453 and 1563 into a three-nave hall church in the late Gothic style. However, the church tower (87 m) that dominates the townscape is a baroque bell tower from 1672, which replaced the original tower top damaged by lightning. From 1501 onwards, the church was Hieronymus Dungersheim’s place of work.

At the end of the Second World War, on 19 March 1945, the south side of St. Mary’s Church in particular was damaged in an air raid on the city centre, when an air mine exploded in the southern courtyard of the cathedral. The spiral staircase at the nave was destroyed, the exterior architecture of the south side was severely damaged,. The spiral staircase on the nave was destroyed, the exterior architecture on the south side was badly damaged, especially the figure decoration on the south nave, the roof cladding and stained-glass windows, inside the gallery with balustrade, as well as epitaphs in the south aisle. The repair of the church roof and the emergency glazing took place as early as 1945, followed by the reconstruction of the late Gothic architecture and the staircase from 1951 to 1956.