The St. Thomas Church () is a

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

church in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, Germany, located at the western part of the inner city ring road in Leipzig's central district.

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

preached in the church in 1539. It is associated with several well-known composers, especially

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...

, who was its

Thomaskantor (Cantor at St. Thomas) is the common name for the musical director of the , now an internationally known boys' choir founded in Leipzig in 1212. The official historic title of the Thomaskantor in Latin, ', describes the two functions of Cantor ( ...

(music director) from 1723 until his death in 1750. The church holds his remains. Although rebuilt over the centuries and damaged by Allied incendiary bombs in 1943, the church mainly retains the character of a late-Gothic

hall church A hall church is a Church (building), church with a nave and aisles of approximately equal height. In England, Flanders and the Netherlands, it is covered by parallel roofs, typically, one for each vessel, whereas in Germany there is often one s ...

. The

Thomanerchor The Thomanerchor (English: St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig) is a boys' choir in Leipzig, Germany. The choir was founded in 1212. The choir comprises about 90 boys from 9 to 18 years of age. The members, called ''Thomaner'', reside in a boarding scho ...

, the church choir, likely founded in 1212, is an internationally known

boys' choir A boys' choir is a one made up of boys who have yet to begin (or are just in the early stages of) puberty and so retain their high-pitched childhood voice. Members are known as trebles ("boy sopranos") or meanes ("boy altos"), depending on their ...

History

The current property was the site of a church at least since the 12th century. Foundations of a Romanesque building were discovered in the

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

and crossing of the current church. Between 1212 and 1222, the earlier structure became the church of the new St. Thomas college of Augustinian canons founded by Markgraf Dietrich von Meissen. This college later became the core of the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

(founded in 1409). In 1217, the

minnesinger (; "love song") was a tradition of German lyric- and song-writing that flourished in the Middle High German period (12th to 14th centuries). The name derives from '' minne'', the Middle High German word for love, as that was ''Minnesangs m ...

Heinrich von Morungen Heinrich von Morungen (died 1222) was a Minnesinger, whose 35 surviving Middle High German songs are dated on both literary and biographical grounds to around the period 1190–1200. Alongside Walter von der Vogelweide and Reinmar von Hagenau, Re ...

bequeathed to the church a relic of St. Thomas as he entered the order of canons after an apocryphal trip to India. In 1355, the Romanesque choir was changed to

Gothic style Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved from Romanesque ar ...

. Following an inflow of wealth into Leipzig from the discovery of silver in the

Ore Mountains The Ore Mountains (, or ; ) lie along the Czech–German border, separating the historical regions of Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Saxony in Germany. The highest peaks are the Klínovec in the Czech Republic (German: ''Keilberg'') at ab ...

(Erzgebirge), the Romanesque nave was demolished and replaced between 1482 and 1496 by the current late-Gothic

. The current building was consecrated by Thilo of Trotha, the

Bishop of Merseburg The Bishopric of Merseburg was an episcopal see on the eastern border of the medieval Duchy of Saxony with its centre in Merseburg, where Merseburg Cathedral was constructed. The see was founded in 967 by Emperor Otto I at the same time in the sa ...

, on 10 April 1496. During the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

it was converted to

Lutheranism Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

. The reformer

preached here on

Pentecost Sunday Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christian holiday which takes place on the 49th day (50th day when inclusive counting is used) after Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles of Je ...

in 1539. The collegiate buildings were demolished in 1541 following the college's dissolution. The current church tower was first built in 1537 and rebuilt in 1702. Chapels added in the 17th century and an ante-building along the northern front of the nave with two stairways were removed at the end of the 19th century. Vxla-jsbach-at-thomaskirsche

The composer

was

, director of music, from 1723 until his death in 1750 and taught at its

affiliated school An affiliated school (also affiliated college, federated school, federated college or federated university) is an educational institution that operates independently, but also has a formal collaborative agreement with another, usually larger instit ...

. A statue of Bach by the Leipzig sculptor Carl Seffner that stands next to the church was dedicated in 1908.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

played the church organ on one of his European tours in 1789. In 1806, the church served as a munitions depot for the French army. During the

Battle of Leipzig The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I, Karl von Schwarzenberg, and G ...

in 1813, it was used as a military hospital.

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

was baptized here on 16 August 1813. In 1828, he studied piano and counterpoint with the then ''Thomaskantor'', Christian Th. Weinlig. Most of the Baroque internal trappings of the church known to Bach were removed in a

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

renovation between 1884 and 1889. The pulpit and the main portal in the west facade also date from this period. During the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

era, the church office worked with government officials to identify which congregants were of Sinti-Romani heritage, ultimately leading to the death of certain parishioners at concentration camps. On 4 December 1943, the tower was damaged in an Allied bombing raid on Leipzig, requiring repair. In 1949 the authorities demolished the St. John Church, also damaged by bombs in 1943, and in 1950 the remains of Johann Sebastian Bach were moved from there to the St. Thomas church. In the 20th century,

sulfur Sulfur ( American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur ( Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms ...

emitted from nearby

coal mines Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

, and other

pollutants A pollutant or novel entity is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effect, or adversely affects the usefulness of a resource. These can be both naturally forming (i.e. minerals or extracted compounds like oi ...

in the atmosphere caused the deterioration of exterior stonework and statuary, and even of interior

Gothic paintings Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

. In addition, the roof structure suffered from damage due to insects and moisture. For these reasons, the church was listed in the

2000 World Monuments Watch The World Monuments Watch is a flagship advocacy program of the New York–based private non-profit organization World Monuments Fund (WMF) and American Express to call upon every government in the world, preservation organizations, and other group ...

by the

World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training ...

. Repairs were swiftly undertaken with financial support from the Fund and from

American Express American Express Company or Amex is an American bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment card industry, payment cards. It is headquartered at 200 Vesey Street, also known as American Expr ...

. Repairs on the church from 1961 to 1964 also attempted to emphasize the Gothic hall church character of the building. Another renovation followed in 1991. From 1993 to 2014, a 15th-century Gothic altar (originally in the St. Paul Church, the church of the University of Leipzig, destroyed in 1968 by the Communist authorities) was located in the St. Thomas Church. It was moved to the new St. Paul Church in 2014 and replaced in 2016 with a Gothic-revival altar by Constantin Lipsius made in 1888, which had been removed in 1964. Mendelssohn Statue Thomaskirche

A statue of

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonie ...

, who lived in Leipzig from 1835 until his death in 1847, was dedicated on 18 October 2008, when it was re-erected opposite the St. Thomas Church on the occasion of the year of his 200th birthday. The statue depicts the former

Gewandhaus Orchestra The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Gewandhausorchester; also previously known in German as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig) is a German symphony orchestra based in Leipzig, Germany. The orchestra is named after the concert hall in which it is bas ...

director and composer in bronze. Celebratory speeches were given by

Kurt Masur Kurt Masur (; 18 July 192719 December 2015) was a German Conducting, conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewand ...

, also a former Gewandhaus Orchestra director, and Burkhard Jung, mayor of Leipzig. The original statue designed by Werner Stein was first dedicated on 26 May 1892. It had been located on the east side of the Gewandhaus until 9 November 1936, when it was taken down by the Nazis because of the composer's Jewish background.

Description

The church measures in length, of which the nave accounts for . The nave is wide and its walls reach a maximum height of . The church's roof is unusually steep, with a

roof pitch Roof pitch is the steepness of a roof expressed as a ratio of inch(es) rise per horizontal foot (or their metric equivalent), or as the angle in degrees its surface deviates from the horizontal. A flat roof has a pitch of zero in either inst ...

of 63 degrees. It rises to a crown that is high. The tower is in height.

Works of art

The church features a number of works of art, including a baptismal font (1614–15) made by Franz Döteber and Portraits show the ''Stadtsuperintendent'' of Leipzig, the oldest dating from 1614. A crucifix made by Caspar Freidrich Löbel is one of the few remaining pieces from the times of Bach. The church also contains a number of notable epitaphs, such as the one for the knight Harras (d. 1451) and for councilor Daniel Leicher (1612). The colored windows in the choir were added after 1889. They show a number of historic motifs: a memorial to the fallen of World War I, King

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus (9 December ld Style and New Style dates, N.S 19 December15946 November ld Style and New Style dates, N.S 16 November1632), also known in English as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was King of Sweden from 1611 t ...

, Johann Sebastian Bach, Martin Luther with Elector '' Friedrich der Weise'' and

Philip Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the L ...

as well as Emperor

Wilhelm I Wilhelm I (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig; 22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888) was King of Prussia from 1861 and German Emperor from 1871 until his death in 1888. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. ...

Tomb of Johann Sebastian Bach

The remains of Johann Sebastian Bach have been buried in the Thomaskirche since 1950. After his death on 28 July 1750, Bach was laid to rest in the hospital cemetery of the Johanniskirche in Leipzig. With the start of the Bach renaissance in the 19th century, the public started to become interested in his remains and their whereabouts. In 1894, the anatomy professor Wilhelm His was commissioned to identify the composer's remains amongst disinterred bones from the cemetery where Bach had been buried. He concluded that "the assumption that the bones of an elderly man, which had been found in an oak coffin near the Johanneskirche, were the remains of Johann Sebastian Bach" (translated from German) was very likely. On 16 July 1900, the bones were placed into a stone sarcophagus underneath the Johanniskirche. During the bombardment of Leipzig on 4 December 1943 the Johanniskirche burned down. The bones from Bach and

Christian Fürchtegott Gellert Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (4 July 171513 December 1769) was a German poet, one of the forerunners of the golden age of German literature that was ushered in by Lessing. Biography Gellert was born at Hainichen in Saxony, at the foot of the ...

were found without damages in 1949 in the crypt of the ruin. The bone from Bach was transferred to the Thomaskirche. The new grave with a bronze cover (sponsored by the Leipzig cultural officer of the Soviet Army) was inaugurated on 28 July 1950, two hundred years after the death of the composer, who is now buried in the sanctuary of the Thomaskirche.

Organs

Sauer-organ (since 1889)

Another notable feature of the Thomaskirche is that it contains two

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

s. The older one is a Romantic organ by

Wilhelm Sauer Wilhelm Carl Friedrich Sauer (23 March 1831 – 9 April 1916) was a German pipe organ builder. One of the famous organ builders of the Romantic period, Sauer and his company W. Sauer Orgelbau built over 1,100 organs during his lifetime, amongst ...

, built from 1884 to 1889 with three manuals, 63 stops and mechanical key and pneumatic stop action. Thomasorganist Carl Piutti ordered in 1902 two new stops and a higher wind pressure from Sauer. To 1908 Sauer rebuilt and enlarged the organ after instructions from

Karl Straube Montgomery Rufus Karl Siegfried Straube (6 January 1873 – 27 April 1950) was a German church musician, organist, and choral conductor, famous above all for championing the abundant organ music of Max Reger. Career Born in Berlin, Straube stu ...

, it contains now pneumatic key action and 88 stops. Between 1934 and 1940, in the working time from Günther Ramin, 16 romantic stops were changed against neo-baroque stops. The German organ builder Christian Scheffler reconstructed and repaired the Sauer-organ in two phases: 1988 to 1993 and in the years to 2005. He restored the organ in the situation in 1908.Booklet to CD: Die Sauer-Orgel der Thomaskirche zu Leipzig 1889 , 1908 / Thomasorganist Ullrich Böhme, Label: Rondeau ROP 6017, 2008

Alexander-Schuke-organ (1967 to 1999)

Since the Sauer-Organ was considered unsuitable for Bach's music, a second organ with three manuals, 47 stops, a neo-baroque stoplist and mechanical key and stop action was built in 1966–67 (by the Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau company). It was dismantled in May 1999 for the new Woehl-Organ. 42 stops and other parts from the Schuke-organ in St. Thomas was reused in the 68 stop-Schuke-organ, built in 2000 to 2005 in

Fürstenwalde Cathedral Fürstenwalde/Spree (; ) is the most populous town in the Oder-Spree District of Brandenburg, in eastern Germany. Geography The town is situated in the glacial valley (''Urstromtal'') of the Spree river north of the Rauen Hills, about east of B ...

Woehl-organ (since 2000)

The Schuke-organ was later replaced by a new organ, built by Gerald Woehl's organ-building company from 1999 to 2000. This "Bach organ" was designed to look similar to the Johann-Scheibe-organ, on which Bach had played in the Paulinerkirche, the stoplist is inspired by the Stertzing-organ, designed by

Johann Christoph Bach Johann Christoph Bach (baptised – 31 March 1703) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period. Johann Christoph was an older cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach who would later describe him in his ''Genealogy'' (, 1735) as "the pr ...

in St. Georg's Church in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a Town#Germany, town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia, and bordering northeastern Hesse, Hessian re ...

during J. S. Bach's childhood.

Church bells

The two bell chambers of the tower hold eight bells with a total weight of . The largest and most precious bell is the Gloriosa, made in 1477 by Theodericus Reinhard; it is rung only on solemnities. Their weight is , the tone an a⁰. Its famous incised drawings were created by Nikolaus Eisenberg. The second bell, Mittelglocke (midbell), was cast in 1574 by Wolf Hilliger, and the so-called Mönchs- oder Beichtglocke (monk's or confessional bell) founded in 1634 by Jakob König, which also strikes the hours. The smallest of the historical bells is the Gebetsglocke (prayer's bell), a work by the master Christophorus Gros from 1585. A clock bell in the lantern of the tower strikes the quarters. In 2020/21 the aforementioned bells were refurbished. Also four new bells were created in the Bachert bell foundry with inscriptions that reflect words from the motets by Johann Sebastian Bach. On Reformation Day 2021, all eight bells rang out together for the first time.

Choir

The

, the choir of the Thomaskirche, was founded in 1212 and is one of the oldest and most famous

s in Germany. It is headed by the

, an office that has been held by many well-known composers and musicians, including Johann Sebastian Bach from 1723 until his death in 1750.

Gallery

File:Leipzig-ChurchStThomas-Sauer-Organ.jpg, The Sauer organ File:Leipzig-ChurchStThomas-Woehl-Organ.jpg, The Woehl organ File:Leipzig Paulinerkirche Scheibe-Orgel um 1720.jpg, The Scheibe-organ from 1717 in Pauliner-/University-Church, certificated by Bach, was the inspiration for Woehl's organ case. File:Vxla-thomaskirsche-exerior.jpg, Exterior of Thomaskirche from north-east File:Thomaskirche Leipzig - 2014 12 30.webm, (video) Exterior of Church with people, 2014 File:StThomas Leipzig hb.JPG, Altar and Bach's tomb File:Exterior of St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, with Bach statue.jpg, Exterior with Bach monument File:Bach Window Thomaskirche.jpg, Stained-glass Bach church window (detail) File:Vxla-thomaskirsche.jpg, Interior of Thomaskirche, view to west

References

External links

Official parish page
*
Entry in the "Leipzig encyclopedia"
*
''Thomaskirche'', in: Stadt Leipzig, Dezernat Stadtentwicklung und Bau (Hrsg.), ''Leipzig-Innenstadt. Städtebaulicher Denkmalschutz 1994–2017'', Beiträge zur Stadtentwicklung (Blaue Reihe), issue 61, o.J., p. 26 f.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Thomas Church, Leipzig

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

Buildings and structures completed in 1496

Leipzig Thomas Church Leipzig Thomas Church Leipzig Thomas Church Leipzig Thomas Church Johann Sebastian Bach Leipzig Thomas Leipzig Thomas Church St. Thomas School, Leipzig Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra