Parish Church of St. Mary & St. Nicholas

At a height of 30 m, you can enjoy a wonderful panoramic view of the historic old town and the surrounding expanse of the Vor Fleming with its asparagus fields from the viewing platform on the church tower

The parish church of Sankt Marien and Sankt Nikolai is a Protestant church in Beelitz in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district.

The church in Beelitz was first mentioned in a document in 1247. The field stones in the west transverse structure, in the tower substructure and in some of the tower floors date from this time. Occasional stones from this period are also built into the longitudinal walls. In 1511 the church was vaulted and rebuilt in brick into a flat-roofed pillar basilica to a three-aisled hall church. A sacristy with two floors was added to the choir in the south; the roof covered with thatch. The church tower was raised by a timber frame. Additional buttresses were attached to the outside of the church to absorb the side forces.

In the centuries that followed, the church fell victim to multiple fires. Damage is reported from the years 1526, 1563, 1619 and 1700. After the last fire, the church was given a roof made of bricks. Inside, the vaults and inner walls were plastered to remove the traces of fire. At the same time, the gallery, which is still preserved today, was built in.

The church is around 43 meters long and 18 meters wide. After deducting the masonry, this results in a usable area of 659 m². The nave is around 20 meters high, the tower 35 meters. The Petruskanzel, a gift from the Prussian King Friedrich I in 1703, is well worth seeing.

In 2013 the church showed a high need for renovation. The outer walls are soaked up to a height of 1.70 meters. This has already resulted in sanding and flaking as well as occasional salt efflorescence. A lack of condensation water channels on the windows, in combination with a temperature difference between the interior and the outside of the wall, leads to a loss of condensation, which flows downwards in an uncontrolled manner along the window. The floor is also affected by moisture damage, as it was made from different materials with different water permeability. This moisture leads to real dry rot and white pore sponge in the chairs, the pulpit and the stairs to the gallery on the north side.

It is therefore planned to carry out a drainage with a plinth renovation in a first construction phase. The outer shell of the building is then to be refurbished in order to subsequently revise the interior.

Source: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Marien_und_St._Nikolai_(Beelitz)

The Beelitz exhibition was in the church.