All Saints' Church, Wittenberg
All Saints' Church, commonly referred to as Schlosskirche to distinguish it from the Stadtkirche of St. Mary's, sometimes known as the Reformation Memorial Church, is a Lutheran church in Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the site where, according to Philip Melanchthon, the Ninety-five Theses were posted by Martin Luther in 1517, launching the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Apse and belfry of the Schlosskirche
Illustration of Wittenberg Castle Church by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1509
"Theses Doors", commemorating Luther's Ninety-five Theses, were installed on Luther's 375th birthday in 1858.
"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", the inscription on the church tower
The Stadt- und Pfarrkirche St. Marien zu Wittenberg is the civic church of the German town of Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The reformers Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen preached there and the building also saw the first celebration of the mass in German rather than Latin and the first ever distribution of the bread and wine to the congregation – it is thus considered the mother-church of the Protestant Reformation. In 1996, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List along with Castle Church of All Saints (Schlosskirche), the Lutherhaus, the Melanchthonhaus, and Martin Luther's birth house and death house in Eisleben, because of its religious significance and testimony to the lasting, global influence of Protestantism.
Stadtkirche Wittenberg
The Stadtkirche from the market square, 2015
Cranach's altarpiece, Stadtkirche, Wittenberg
Stadtkirche Wittenberg from the north east