St. Andrew's Church

St. Andreas stands in Hildesheim, a town in Lower Saxony, as the city’s main Lutheran church. It occupies a site on the Treibeinsel, a small island in the Innerste river, where a simple chapel already existed by the early 11th century. Over the centuries the building grew into a Romanesque church with a strong westwork, then a Gothic basilica whose tower was finally completed in the 19th century. The interior follows French cathedral models, with a choir and radiating side chapels to the east. After wartime destruction in 1945 only the outer walls remained, and the church was rebuilt between 1956 and 1965.

The church’s 114.5-metre tower is the tallest in Lower Saxony and can be climbed by 364 steps. Four historic bells hang in the belfry, the oldest dating from 1632. In 1542 St. Andreas became the first church in Hildesheim to adopt Lutheranism, and Johannes Bugenhagen introduced a new church order there. A memorial fountain by Ulrich Henn in the southern forecourt recalls this moment. The rebuilding after the war included a new four-manual organ finished in 1966.

Visitors enter a long nave with side altars and reach the quire at the east end. The tower stairway winds upward past the bells to an open viewing platform. Across the street stands the Upended Sugarloaf, a distinctive half-timbered house rebuilt in 2009–2010. From the tower platform the city and surrounding countryside stretch out in every direction.