Nikolai Church Leipzig

The late Gothic Nikolaikirche, whose interior was redesigned in a neoclassical style around 1790, is one of the two remaining churches in Leipzig for whose church music Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) was responsible.

From time immemorial, the church music of St. Nicholas was closely linked to the neighboring church of St. Thomas. Although St. Nicholas Church was considered the main parish church in Leipzig, it had its own organist but no cantor. As St. Thomas' Cantor and Leipzig's "Director musices", Bach was responsible for the church music at both main churches, St. Nicholas and St. Thomas, as well as at the New Church of St. Matthäi and St. Peter's Church. Most cantata performances under Bach's direction took place in St. Nicholas Church. Bach's major works were also premiered here, including the St. John Passion (1724) and the Christmas Oratorio (1734/35).

The prayers for peace, which still take place every Monday at 5 pm, made St. Nicholas Church the starting point of the Peaceful Revolution in 1989 and thus a symbol of German reunification. The light installation "public light - öffentliches Licht" in the Nikolaikirchhof consists of 144 colored glass cubes set into the pavement. It is a metaphor for the active will of the citizens of Leipzig and reflects the process of the situational flare-up of political awareness. The Nikolai Column, erected in front of the church and crowned with palm fronds, with its classicist column motif from inside the church, is also intended as a reminder of those participants who could no longer find a seat in the overcrowded Nikolai Church in the fall of '89.