St. Mary's Cathedral

St. Mary’s Cathedral in Zwickau is a significant late-Gothic hall church with furnishings of great art-historical value.

The tradition of Saxon church music is upheld in the numerous church concerts held in the cathedral.

St. Mary’s Cathedral in Zwickau was founded as St. Mary’s Church before 1200. The original Romanesque basilica was converted into a late Gothic hall church between 1453 and 1565. St. Mary’s has been Protestant since the Reformation in 1518. Thomas Müntzer served here for six months in 1520, and Dr. Martin Luther most likely preached in this church during his visit to Zwickau in 1522. 

The spire was built by Joachim Marquard between 1671 and 1672. This brought the building’s height to 87 meters. In 1935, St. Mary’s was granted the title “cathedral,” even though Zwickau was never the seat of a bishop. Efforts after the collapse of the Third Reich to reverse this decision failed due to resistance from the people of Zwickau, who wanted to keep their cathedral.

St. Mary’s Cathedral bears witness to an 880-year-old and highly eventful architectural history. The area surrounding the late-Gothic, three-nave hall church has subsided by an average of 4 meters and shifted 1.30 meters to the southeast due to coal mining. Today, St. Mary’s Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral is the ephorate church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church District of Zwickau and the house of worship of the Evangelical Lutheran City Parish of Zwickau. 

Header image: © TMGS Archive, Philipp Herfort Photography