St. Marien Church

The St. Marien Church in Frankfurt (Oder) was built over 250 years ago. The original construction was created in 1253 with one of the earliest terraces in the Mark Brandenburg. The church was bit by bit extended and improved in the following centuries. In the earliest centuries the Marien Church still had 2 towers and in the year 1450 they were extended by 4 further storeys.
This church building is one of the largest of north-German brick gothic building; with alength of 77 metres and a width of 45 metres.

Even at that time were the 3 lead glass windows a crowd puller. The windows were created between 1360 and 1370. They document in 117 pictures the life of Adam and Eve, the construction of the Noah's Arch and the life of Jesus Christ. Every one of these pictures has the size of 83 x 43cm. The windows were stored in the Palace Sanssouci in Potsdam for their protection during the 2nd World War. The Marien Church was nearly completely destroyed during the war. After the end of the war the lead glass windows were until August 1946 in Berlin in war loot storage, then brought toLeningrad and again stored.
They were considered missing for a long time and only found in St. Petersburg in 1997. 111 of the 117 segments were given back to the Marien Church in 2002. After a lengthy restoration everybody was able to celebrate the inauguration of the glasses in 2007 in the Marien Church. The remaining 6 segments came back to the Marien Church in November 2008 after these were discovered in the Moscow Pushkin Museum.

A lease agreement stipulated in 1979 that the church was to be restored and extended. But only in the year 1990 continued the construction and the re-erecting of the main roofs followed only in the year 1998. From now on the Marien Church only had one tower und this one was restored in the nineties and painted with a new facade colour. It now shines in new spleadour.