St. Nikolai — Attraction in Greifswald

dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of seafarers and merchants, is a Brick Gothic church located in the western part of the centre of Greifswald. It was the main church and seat of the bishop of the Pomeranian Evangelical Church.

The first written sources referring to a church dedicated to St. Nicholas in Greifswald are from 1263. The oldest extant parts of the church have been dated to the last third of the 13th century. The building of the church started with the erection of a single-nave choir, which was later incorporated in a hall church with two aisles and a nave of equal size. The foundations of the western tower were laid at the same time. The church was furnished with its first organ already in 1362. In 1385 work was begun on a new choir with a straight eastern wall, which was finished in 1395.

The church lost its spire twice during severe storms. The first time was in 1515, when the top collapsed, apparently without causing any severe damage to the church building. It was not replaced until 1609. The collapse on 13 February 1650 initially destroyed the roof of the church, causing several of the vaults of the nave and southern aisle to collapse, and a few days later, the eastern wall of the church also collapsed.

The interior of the church was thoroughly renewed in 1823–1832. The refurnishing was carried out to the designs by the Greifswald architect Gottlieb Giese.

The church is constructed solely out of brick. It has the form of a basilica with a nave and two side-aisles. The nave is somewhat higher than the aisles; both the nave and the aisles walls have pointed, Gothic windows. The eastern wall has a trapezoid form and a richly articulated facade. The roof of the nave is made of copper, while the covering of the aisles are made of brick.

The western tower has a height of 99.97 metres (328.0 ft). The square lower part of the tower is in its upper parts decorated with blind arcades.

Very little remains of the medieval furnishings of the church. What remained of these after the destruction of 1650 was removed from the church at the latest in the 1790s. A medieval sculpture of Mary later came into the possession of the Catholic congregation in Stralsund. The large, Renaissance altarpiece was brought to a museum in Stralsund in 1876. Almost all the presently visible furnishings of the church date from the renovation an refurnishing of the church carried out...

A beautiful church with a lot of history for the town. Definitely make your way up to the tower if you can. It's a bit of a climb, but the journey is so interesting. Winding staircases, old brick walls and metal rails, time windows along the way, the bells in the tower, and an incredible view over the city once you reach the top. I think I will do it again...

Der Greifswalder Dom ist seit 2008 Kulturdenkmal nationaler Bedeutung. 2013 wurde er von der Stiftung zur Bewahrung kirchlicher Baudenkmäler in Deutschland zur "Kirche des Jahres 2013" gewählt. St. Nikolai wurde 1280 erstmals urkundlich erwähnt. Die Kirche ist benannt nach dem Heiligen Nikolaus von Myra (um 285 - um 350), der im Mittelalter als Schutzpatron der See- und Kaufleute galt. 1456, im Jahr der Universitätsgründung, fand die Weihung zum Dom statt. Bis heute finden hier akademische Ehrungen und Immatrikulationen statt. St. Nikolai ist die Taufkirche des Malers Caspar David Friedrich (1774 - 1840). Der Kirchenraum ist im neugotischen Stil ausgestattet. Seit 2012 ist die Bibliothek des Geistlichen Ministeriums mit mittelalterlichen Handschriften, Inkunabeln und Büchern öffentlich zugänglich. Der 98 Meter hohe, barock behelmte Turm kann erklommen werden. An hohen Feiertagen erklingt ein ergreifendes Glockenspiel der insgesamt sieben Glocken. Der Greifswalder Dom ist Teil der Europäischen Route der Backsteingotik, der Schwedenstraße und des...