The town church of Creuzburg is one of the first Protestant churches in all of Thuringia. Today it is a listed building. The construction took 3 years: from 1215 to 1218. Originally it was probably planned as a Romanesque basilica. The large, semicircular choir room with a diameter of 11 meters bears witness to this. In the 13th century, the church could not be completely finished due to its size. As if by a miracle, it was preserved as one of the few structures during a siege by King Adolf von Nassau in the summer of 1295. The church was finally completed in the 14th century, but the church still had no tower. This was only built in 1428. Although the rich furnishings of the Nikolaikirche were heavily devastated by religious zealots and iconoclasts during the Reformation, the building itself survived the Peasants 'War and the Thirty Years' War that soon followed unscathed. However, in a major fire in 1765, St. Nikolai burned down completely. At that time even the privy councilor Johann Wolfgang von Goethe came to sketch the rubble and got involved in the reconstruction. However, it took almost 20 years before restoration could begin. In 1786 the church was consecrated again. The interior was based on the taste of the time and an organ was purchased. In 1921 a memorial plaque was put up for the Creuzburg composer and organist Michael Praetorius, who was an important representative of Protestant church music. He was born in Creuzburg in 1521. Works like: "Es ist ein Ros' sprung" and "In dulci jubilo" come from his pen. The effects of the Second World War, however, did not leave the Church unaffected. A heavy attack by American troops completely destroyed the church. It burned to the ground and remained in this desolate state as a ruin and memorial until the 1960s. Reconstruction began in 1963 (excerpts from Thüringen.de)