St. Mary's Town Church, Wittenberg

part One
City and parish church of St. Mary of Lutherstadt Wittenberg
The parish church St. Marien of Lutherstadt Wittenberg is part of the UNESCO World Heritage.
From this church, the oldest building in the city, the message of the Reformation was born. Here the church heard Martin Luther's sermon.
For this church, the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder. the Reformation Altar.
Here Johannes Bugenhagen translated the Reformation insights into the practice of the community.

The city u. Parish Church of St. Mary is as Martin Luther's preaching church closely connected with the Reformation events in Wittenberg.
When Luther took up his professorship at Wittenberg University in 1512, he found the church as it still shows itself to every visitor today. Entering the church through the large west portal, the view is directed directly to the altar in the choir. This altar by Lucas Cranach the Elder. (1472-1553) from 1547 is a particularly impressive testimony from the Reformation period. He is almost considered the Reformation altar. He shows in his intact surviving four panels the main features of Protestant parish life and reformatory understanding of the church.

Of particular charm is that here we meet people from the Wittenberg of the Reformation. Philipp Melanchthon at the baptism, Luther as Junker Jörg, Johannes Bugenhagen in the open confessional, Cranach the Elder. and Catherine of Bora as parishioners and Luther as preacher.

In the sanctuary are still a number of valuable panels (epitaphs) by Lucas Cranach d.J. (1515-1586).

Part II
Here you will also find the oldest piece of equipment of the church, the baptismal font of Hermann Vischer from Nuremberg. In 1457 it was completed on Michaelistag and brought to this church. The artful design shows vividly what baptism means.

From the sanctuary, the path leads us through the church into the adjoining sacristy. For many years it has been hosting art exhibitions of objects by contemporary artists. On the west side a very old sandstone relief can be seen. "The World Judge" is an impressive testimony to the theology and piety of the pre-Reformation period.

If we turn our gaze from the sanctuary to the west, our gaze falls on the organ, which in its architecture particularly adorns the installation space. In 1983, on Pentecost Sunday, it was consecrated by Martin Luther's 500th birthday and placed at the service of liturgical life. Numerous church concerts delight the community and visitors in the same way. The pulpit, of which Luther preached, can be visited today in the Luther Hall. In the great renovation of the church in 1811, the old pulpit was taken out and a neo-gothic complete equipment had been installed.

The building history, which spans several centuries, can still be seen today in the various stages of construction. From the end of the 13th century comes the present day altar room, in the 14th century, the late Gothic three-nave nave and the twin towers, which has 1556/1557 got its present tower hoods.

Special jewelery are the vaulted boulders in the choir room and the head consoles in the nave. They are partly attributed to the school of the Naumburg master.

These stonemasonry also includes the abuse u. Mockery of the Jews, the medieval "Judensau", outside, on the southeast corner of the choir room. In 1988, a memorial was erected below it in the pavement area of the church square.

Here preached Martin Luther.