St Mary’s

Anyone who enters Kemberg’s St Mary will feel a closeness to Martin Luther, who is said to have preached 13 sermons from the Kemberg pulpit. Reformation meets modernity here. 

Built between 1290 and 1340, murals make this church unique in the region. The gallery has a picture cycle depicting 35 scenes taken from the first book of Moses, from God’s creation of the world and of humans to the Flood, from Jacob’s blessing to the dream of Pharaoh.

Modernity expresses itself in the new choir windows made in 2000 and designed by Günter Grohs from Wernigerode, and the altar cross erected in 2002, designed by the Austrian Arnulf Rainer. Until 1994, a winged altar by Lucas Cranach depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments had graced the church. Unfortunately, a smoldering fire destroyed most of this altar. The remaining parts are on display in the former sacristy.
Matthias Wanckel, the son-in-law of Bartholomäus Bernhardi, commissioned the winged altar in 1564. Bernhardi, provost in Kemberg from 1518 onwards and a friend of Martin Luther, married the Kemberg burgher’s daughter Gertraud Pannier in 1521, thus pioneering the Protestant parish family. He was the first priest to enter the state of marriage without being executed for it.