St. Lorenz (Lorenzkirche)
About This Site
St. Lorenz, the Lorenzkirche, is the Catholic parish church on the Anger, Erfurt's central square, and one of the city's oldest parish churches, the first after the cathedral to hold parish rights of its own: its earliest surviving charter dates from 1140, its square tower from around 1300, and its south front, with tall Gothic windows raised through the eaves under gables of their own, from the rebuilding after the fire of 1413.[1] It is also the place where the peace prayer has been held every Thursday since 1978, a prayer that gained a special meaning in the Peaceful Revolution of 1989.[2] Inside wait a Gothic winged altar, medieval figures of saints and a late Gothic font,[3] and on the wall towards Schlösserstraße a plaque, unveiled in 2019,[3] recalls that the first ecumenical peace prayers of the GDR began in this church.[4]
Erfurt's first parish church, 1140–1525
The oldest surviving charter of St. Lorenz, from 1140, names Gislebert, the Archbishop of Mainz's Vitztum, as founder and builder of the church, and Adalbert II, then provost in Erfurt and later Archbishop of Mainz, as the man who consecrated it. From the start it held parish rights, answered directly to the see of Mainz and stood independent of the cathedral; after the cathedral it was the first church in Erfurt with parish rights of its own. In 1318 Archbishop Peter of Mainz incorporated it into the impoverished Regler monastery. When Protestant preaching began in the Reglerkirche in 1523, the priests of St. Lorenz remained Catholic, and the church closed only briefly, during the peasants' uprising of 1525.[1]
Tower, fire and the gabled windows, c. 1300–1893
The oldest parts of the church are the square tower and part of the west wall, from the turn of the thirteenth to the fourteenth century; two altars consecrated in 1316 may belong to that Gothic rebuilding.[1] The tower stands 40 metres high.[5] The city fire of 1413 largely burned the church down. The third building, in the first half of the fifteenth century, added the north aisle and renewed the south wall facing the Anger as the church's show front: its windows were raised above the roof cornice and capped with gables, an art form found nowhere else in fifteenth-century Erfurt. A restoration of 1888 to 1893 broke through the straight east wall for a polygonal apse and set some of its three windows into the new choir.[1]
Jesuits, sacristy and council, 1664–1996
From 1664 to 1773 the Jesuits of the college opposite shared the church.[3] The present sacristy was added in 1925, and in 1965 and 1966 the interior was remodelled along the lines of the Second Vatican Council, the form that still shapes the church today; the last comprehensive repair followed in 1996.[1]
Winged altar, sandstone Christ and the Klais organ, Middle Ages–2023
Statues of the two patron saints, Lawrence, who gave the church its name, and Wenceslas, flank the south portal, and epitaphs of the eighteenth century line the south wall outside. Inside stand a Gothic winged altar, carved saints of the high and late medieval centuries, a rare figure of Christ cut in sandstone on one of the pillars and a late Gothic font. The organ, with 27 stops on three manuals and pedal, was built by Klais in 1935 and thoroughly overhauled by Orgelbau Kutter in 2023.[3]
The first peace prayer, 1978
The peace prayer was born of the military instruction the GDR brought into schools for the school year 1978/79. Ilse Neumeister of the Protestant Jungmännerwerk heard of the plan and told a discussion group of the Predigergemeinde; an Erfurt senior physician wrote petitions to the education minister that went unanswered, and his wife, moved by Reinhold Schneider's line that only those who pray can still hold back the sword above our heads, proposed a circle of women praying for peace, in a public church. The heated Lorenzkirche in the city centre suited, its pastor gladly opened it, and on 7 December 1978 the ecumenical prayer began under the name Friedensgebet[6] — Erfurt's Christians answering the militarisation of the young with prayer.[7]
Every Thursday, 1978–1989
The liturgy is simple: a song or two, the Lord's Prayer, the Franciscan prayer that begins “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”, and intercessions for the week's events, often with news of conscripts, objectors, armament or wars. During the ten-day Peace Decades of the 1980s it grew into an unbroken prayer around the clock, with many people taking turns.[6] From Erfurt the peace prayers spread across the whole country.[4] The Thursday prayer in St. Lorenz is the oldest continuous peace prayer in eastern Germany, older than Leipzig's.[7]
From the church to the Domplatz, October 1989
In October 1989 a Protestant and a Catholic theology student announced that after the next peace prayer they would walk to the Andreaskirche, opposite the building of the Stasi, and so the first demonstration in Erfurt set out from St. Lorenz. Word spread: peace prayer at five on Thursday, then the demonstration. On 26 October the Predigerkirche also opened for prayer, and from the following week four city-centre churches, the Lorenz, Kaufmanns, Prediger and Wigbert churches, before people carried candles in procession to the rally on the Domplatz, calling for no violence.[6] The Thursday demonstrations soon drew tens of thousands.[3]
The plaque on the wall, 2019–2023
On 9 November 2019, the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall, a plaque was unveiled on the church wall to mark St. Lorenz as the birthplace of the GDR's peace prayers. Its donor, the MEP Marion Walsmann, had presented the idea at an ecumenical service here on 3 October 2019, and former mayor Manfred Ruge, civil rights campaigners and many Christians attended the unveiling. The plaque names the introduction of military instruction in schools by the SED dictatorship as the cause of the prayers and is signed by the Protestant and Catholic Christians of the city and citizens of Erfurt. On 19 December 2023 its design was handed over to the Stadtmuseum Erfurt for lasting safekeeping.[4]
A city-centre parish church, 2017 to today
Since 2017 St. Lorenz has been the parish church of the city-centre parish of St. Laurentius.[3] Its Sunday service brings together every age group, Nightfever Erfurt holds its evenings of prayer, music and conversation here, and concerts in the church reach many people who otherwise keep their distance from church; the peace prayer still meets every Thursday.[2]
Questions visitors ask
- Why is St. Lorenz called the birthplace of the peace prayers?
- The first ecumenical peace prayers of the GDR began here on 7 December 1978, in answer to the military instruction introduced in schools,[6] and spread from Erfurt across the country. A plaque on the church wall has marked the place since 9 November 2019.[4]
- Is the peace prayer still held?
- Yes. The ecumenical peace prayer has met in St. Lorenz every Thursday since 1978, the oldest continuous peace prayer in eastern Germany.[7]
- How old is the Lorenzkirche?
- Its oldest surviving charter dates from 1140, and after the cathedral it was the first church in Erfurt with parish rights of its own. The tower and part of the west wall date from around 1300, the north aisle and the gabled south front from the rebuilding after the fire of 1413, and the apse from the restoration of 1888 to 1893.[1]
- What part did St. Lorenz play in 1989?
- In October 1989 the first demonstration in Erfurt set out after the peace prayer here for the Andreaskirche, opposite the Stasi building; from then on peace prayers in four city-centre churches preceded the Thursday processions to the Domplatz.[6]
- What is there to see inside?
- A Gothic winged altar, carved saints of the high and late medieval centuries, a rare sandstone figure of Christ on a pillar, a late Gothic font and a Klais organ of 1935.[3]
- Where is St. Lorenz?
- On the northern edge of the Anger, at the start of Schlösserstraße, at Pilse 30 in the centre of Erfurt's old town.[3]
Sources (7)
- Die älteste Pfarrkirche der Stadt — Bistum Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Kirche St. Lorenz am Anger in Erfurt – Geburtsort der Friedensgebete — Katholische Pfarrei St. Laurentius Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- St. Lorenz (Erfurt) — Wikipedia, retrieved 13 September 2026
- DDR-Friedensgebete: Entwurf der Gedenktafel ans Stadtmuseum übergeben — Stadt Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Kirchen in Erfurt: St. Lorenz (Lorenzkirche) — Stadt Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Wie das Friedensgebet entstand — Ökumenisches Friedensgebet Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
- Ökumenisches Friedensgebet wird 40 Jahre alt — Evangelischer Kirchenkreis Erfurt, retrieved 13 September 2026
Visit Information
Pilse 30, 99084 Erfurt
In the history of Erfurt
Historic sites
Anger, 99084 Erfurt
St. Lorenz is one of the churches on the Anger, its 40-metre tower a survivor of the city fire of 1413.
Historical periods
Christians of both churches began the GDR's first ecumenical peace prayers here in December 1978, in answer to military instruction in schools.
For forty-five years Weimar was a provincial town that the state could not afford to neglect, because the classics it kept were the pedigree East Germany wanted for itself.
Around Weimar
20 km West
One of Erfurt's oldest parish churches stands on the Anger, and the first ecumenical peace prayers of the GDR began in it in 1978.