St. Peter's Church is a Lutheran Church in the southern centre of Leipzig in today's gaudig place. Due to the permanent seating of the church, which is no longer available, the nave offers a flexible function room, which is used in addition to the worship services as well as for various concerts, theatre performances, exhibitions and meetings. For example, events of the Leipzig Wave Gothic meeting take place in the church.

Building history (1876-1886)

Due to the rapidly growing number of members of the St. Peter parish of the Church Council in 1876, decided under the chairmanship of the parish priest and theology Professor, Gustav Adolf Fricke, to build a new Church building. A suitable area was acquired by the parish through the exchange of the area of the Old St. Peter's Church against the former Schletterplatz south of the city center. Following the invitation of an architectural competition in the German-speaking area in 1877 and the examination of the 80 designs received, the architects August Hartel and Constantin Lipsius were obliged to create and implement a joint design based on their two proposed building plans. The foundation stone laying of the new St. Peter's church was celebrated on 17 September 1882, but construction work had already begun in March. The neo-Gothic building still has the highest church tower in the city at 88.5 meters and was built on the 27th floor of the building. It was consecrated on 31 December 1885. at this time, however, not all construction work had been completed. Thus, the painting of the church and the use of the stained glass windows were completed only in 1886.

Development (1886-2009)

At the beginning of the 20th century, the original gas lighting of the church was replaced by powerful electric chandeliers, which in turn moved in 1965 to new ceiling chandeliers.  On December 4, 1943, the church suffered considerable damage during an air attack on Leipzig, including the main roof, the chapels, the windows and partly the interior. The large organ, which was produced by Wilhelm Sauer in 1885, was thus lost. The roof chair and the vault were provisionally secured in 1948/49. The church had no main roof for about ten years, until it was rebuilt with Swedish help from 1954. The Plan to set up the Sauer organ was finally abandoned in 1957. In the following years, further damage was caused by theft, vandalism and weather-related stone destruction. In 1978, the congregation decided to remove the fixed pews from the Church interior.

After the political change in 1992, the construction and gradual restoration of the church began. Since then, the roof, large parts of the sandstone facade and the entire baptismal chapel have been renovated. The bell tower was removed in the years 2005 to 2009 due to the heavily weathered sandstone up to the height of the dial of the tower clock and rebuilt with a combination of old Material (outer) and New sandstones (inner/bearing parts). In addition, the interior of the tip was secured with several Ring cores and steel struts. In a second phase of construction within these five years, the tower shaft, i.e. the lower part of the tower, was also renovated. The fundamental renovation of all outer areas of the St. Peter's church was completed in July 2014.

The figurative cycle of coloured stained glass paintings of the church, which is unique in Saxony, is remarkable.

Organ

Until 1943, the St. Peter's Church has a large organ of the organ Builder Wilhelm Sauer (Frankfurt/Oder). This Instrument had been built in 1885 and had 60 registers.