The new year of 2013 started dull and grey with few bright moments. Today, I decided to spend some time inside some of the churches of the city, trying my two new lenses – more on that in another post. Paderborn is quite well-known for its Catholic tradition. One the many churches right in the city centre is the Martkirche (literally Market Church) which is located at the Rathausplatz close to the town hall rather than where the market is located these days.

In the 16th century, the majority of the city’s inhabitants were of Protestant belief, when in 1580 the later Prince-Bishop of Paderborn attracted the Catholic order of the Society of Jesus to help in the counter-reformation. Immediately preceding the Thirty Years’ War, the first university of Westphalia was founded here. After the war – with Paderborn’s population decimated to one tenth of its former size –, the city began to grow again and the Catholic church played an important role in rebuilding it. The Jesuit Church, consecrated in 1692, was one of the last to be built as part of the university college for the Society of Jesus.

After the Society of Jesus had been suppressed by the pope in 1773, the church became the new Market Curch. Only the outer walls and the pillars survived the allied bombing of the city in 1945. The reconstruction took until 1958, and subsequently the outside and interior were restored from 1980 on. With the reconstruction of the baroque high altar – at 22m once the highest of its kind in Northern Germany – the church is back to old beauty since 2003.

This photograph was made with a Canon EOS 6D and an EF 35mm f/2 IS USM lens. The exposure was 1/15 second at f/5.6 and ISO 800. The photograph was edited in Adobe Lightroom. You can find this photo along with others from my the city where I live in my album Paderborn.