Augustinerkloster
About This Site
The Evangelisches Augustinerkloster in Erfurt is a rare surviving example of medieval monastic architecture, complete with its church, three enclosed courtyards and its conventual and working buildings.[1] The Augustinian Hermits began building it in 1277, and Martin Luther lived here as a monk from 1505 to 1511.[2] Today it is a Protestant place of worship, conference centre and guest house, carrying the European Heritage Label as a Luther memorial and a site of the history of democracy.[3]
The Augustinian Hermits build their friary, 1131–1350
The parish church of St. Philippi und Jacobi stood on the site from 1131. Augustinian Hermits settled in Erfurt in 1266, returned in 1276 after a brief expulsion over disputes with the council, and in 1277, finding their church in poor repair, began to rebuild it; by 1350 the church and the conventual buildings stood. Of Erfurt's mendicant churches the Augustinerkirche is the oldest and the first completed. Its stained glass windows of 1310 to 1330 are among the oldest in Erfurt, three tomb slabs of Augustinian clergy in the choir date from 1370 to 1380, and the outdoor pulpit on the north side recalls services held in the open air.[2] The monastery school offered a studium generale, and in the lion-and-parrot window of the choir is the model for the Luther rose.[4]
Novice, priest and first mass, 1505–1507
Luther had taken his master's degree at Erfurt's university in 1505 when the lightning experience at Stotternheim in July of that year ended his plan to study law, and on 17 July 1505 he entered the Augustinian friary as a novice.[5] In 1506 he took his vows in the Augustinerkirche and was received into the order.[3] He was ordained a priest in 1507, probably in the Kilian chapel at the cathedral,[5] and on 2 May 1507 he celebrated his first mass in the Augustinerkirche. By his own account these years in the monastery were the most formative of his life.[2]
Lecturer, Rome and farewell, 1507–1521
After his ordination Luther studied theology for two years at his order's studium generale in the monastery, and by April 1508 he was already its third lecturer. For the winter semester of 1508 to 1509 he was sent to the University of Wittenberg; he returned to Erfurt in 1509, gained further degrees in 1509 and 1510, travelled to Rome in 1510 and 1511, came back in March 1511 and left Erfurt for Wittenberg for good in the summer of that year.[5] On his way to the Diet of Worms he came through Erfurt again and on 7 April 1521 preached to a great crowd in the monastery church.[6]
Reformation, school and orphanage, 1522–1846
In 1522 Johannes Lang, a close friend of Luther's, became prior, prepared the way for Luther's teaching in and around Erfurt, and left the order that same year with many other monks. The church passed to the Protestant congregation of St. John in 1525, the last monk died in 1556, and in 1559 the monastery was secularised. From 1561 the city's Protestant grammar school used the west wing and the priory until 1820; the library of the Protestant Ministry moved in in 1646, and from 1669 an orphanage occupied the east wing. The New Priory was pulled down in 1821, and by 1846 the west wing and the priory had been rebuilt to designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.[2]
The Erfurt Union Parliament, 1844–1938
The church had to be closed as unsafe in 1844. A petition to King Frederick William IV brought money from the state, and from 1848 the Augustinerkirche was restored in neo-Gothic style as the meeting place of the Union Parliament: from March to May 1850, 91 members of the house of states and 223 of the people's house debated a draft constitution here, which the princes later rejected; Otto von Bismarck was among them. The church was restored for worship and reconsecrated in 1854, and after lightning struck the tower in 1935 the architect Theo Kellner returned its interior to the plain character of the fourteenth century.[2]
The cellar of the library, 25 February 1945
On 25 February 1945 two British bombs struck the woad houses and the library, in whose cellars people from the town had taken shelter; 267 of them died, and only a small girl and a dog were rescued from the ruins.[2] The four medieval choir windows survived because they had been moved to the village church of Hohenfelden. A Place of Silence in the old cellar of the rebuilt library now remembers the 267 dead with boards bearing their names, and holds the cross of the international Community of the Cross of Nails given to the monastery in 2008.[4]
Preachers, a Luther memorial and 1989, 1946–1990
Rebuilding began in 1946. After the east wing was restored, the Protestant preachers' school moved in from Wittenberg in 1960, and until it closed in 1993 more than 500 young people lived and studied here.[2] A Luther exhibition opened in 1980, and because the monastery had been recognised as one of four Luther memorials of the GDR, a planned demolition of the west wing for a swimming pool did not go ahead; a church conference house opened in 1988. On 28 September 1989 nearly a thousand people came to the church for an information evening of the opposition movement Demokratischer Aufbruch, at which the pastor Edelbert Richter set out its aims.[4]
Library, woad houses and a papal visit, 2000–2011
The monastery buildings were restored and modernised from 2000 to 2003 and have served as a conference centre since; in 2004 the Augustinerkloster was recognised as a monument of particular national importance. The woad houses reopened in September 2008 as a modern building with seventeen guest rooms, and the new library building, on the site of the one destroyed in 1945, was inaugurated on 27 August 2010; the library of the Protestant Ministry, with 60,000 volumes one of the most important church collections in Germany, remains in the former dormitory. On 23 September 2011 Pope Benedict XVI visited the monastery.[4]
Frust und Freiheit and the jubilee, 2025–2027
In March 2025 a new permanent exhibition opened, Frust und Freiheit, curated with the Lutherhaus Eisenach; it tells of Luther's years in the monastery, the Union Parliament of 1850 and the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 in Erfurt, and of the city as a centre of printing in the sixteenth century.[4] In 2027 the monastery celebrates 750 years, from an opening in the Augustinerkirche on 6 January to a festival week from 3 to 12 September, when the monastery goes back to Luther's time.[7]
Visiting, today
A guided tour of about an hour starts every day at 11 am without booking, through the cloister, chapter house, Luther's cell, monastery garden and the new exhibition; from Monday to Friday visitors may then look round the historic library. With an audio guide in German, English or Korean, spoken by Margot Käßmann, the monastery can be visited on weekdays from 10 am to 4 pm, on Saturdays from 11 am to 2 pm and on Sundays and holidays from 11 am to 12.30 pm.[8] Sunday service is at 9.30 am.[9] In summer the gardens, with lavender, roses and oleander, are a quiet place for a pause in the middle of the town.[3]
Questions visitors ask
- When did Martin Luther enter the Augustinerkloster?
- On 17 July 1505, as a novice, shortly after the lightning experience at Stotternheim; he took his vows in 1506.[5][3]
- Was Luther ordained in the monastery?
- He was ordained a priest in 1507, probably in the Kilian chapel at the cathedral, and celebrated his first mass in the Augustinerkirche on 2 May 1507.[5][2]
- How long did Luther live at the Augustinerkloster?
- From 1505 until the summer of 1511, apart from the winter semester of 1508 to 1509 in Wittenberg and his journey to Rome in 1510 and 1511; he then left Erfurt for Wittenberg for good.[5]
- What happened in the Augustinerkirche in 1850?
- The Erfurt Union Parliament met there from March to May 1850 to debate a constitution for a united Germany; Otto von Bismarck was one of its members.[2]
- Can I visit the Augustinerkloster?
- Yes. A guided tour runs daily at 11 am without booking, and an audio guide is available on weekdays from 10 am to 4 pm and at shorter times at the weekend; admission is 8.50 euros.[8]
Connected Historical Figures
reformer • theologian • preacher
Luther entered the friary as a novice on 17 July 1505, took his vows here in 1506, celebrated his first mass in its church in 1507 and belonged to it until he left Erfurt for Wittenberg in 1511.
Sources (9)
- Evangelisches Augustinerkloster zu Erfurt — Evangelisches Augustinerkloster Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Kirche & Kloster — Evangelisches Augustinerkloster Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Evangelisches Augustinerkloster zu Erfurt — Erfurt Tourismus und Marketing GmbH, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Augustinerkloster Erfurt — Wikipedia, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Martin Luther — Stadt Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- 1473 – 1618 | Humanismus und Reformation, zweite Blüte um 1600 — Landeshauptstadt Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Jubiläumsjahr 2027 — Evangelisches Augustinerkloster Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Führungen & Ausstellung — Evangelisches Augustinerkloster Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Dauerausstellung „Frust und Freiheit“ — Evangelisches Augustinerkloster Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
Visit Information
Guided tour or audio guide: adults 8.50 euros, overnight guests 7.50 euros; children from 12 (tour) or 6–17 (children's audio guide) 4 euros; families pay for one child. Group tours by arrangement.
Guided tour daily at 11:00 (about 1 hour, no booking). Audio guide: Mon–Fri 10:00–16:00, Sat 11:00–14:00, Sundays and holidays 11:00–12:30. Sunday service 9:30.
Augustinerstraße 10, 99084 Erfurt
50.9814, 11.0300
In the history of Erfurt
Historic sites
Domstufen 1, 99084 Erfurt
Luther, a friar of this monastery, was ordained a priest in 1507, probably in the Kilian chapel at the cathedral, before celebrating his first mass in the Augustinerkirche.
Lutherplatz 8, 99817 Eisenach
The Lutherhaus Eisenach co-curated the monastery's permanent exhibition Frust und Freiheit, opened in March 2025.
Around Weimar
20 km West
The Augustinian friary where Martin Luther lived as a monk from 1505 to 1511, a complete medieval monastery with church, three courtyards, exhibition and guest rooms.