NIKOLAIKIRCHE (SAINT-NICOLAS CHURCH)

The Nikolaikirche is an absolute necessity for a visit to Leipzig, both for its appearance and for the history of which it is responsible. If his dark crépi gives him less exterior than his "sister" the Thomaskirche, she precedes it by far by the originality and beauty of her interior interior, one of the most accomplished of Germany in the style of classicism. The church Saint-Nicolas is the oldest and largest church in Leipzig. A Romanesque style in 1165 (style that is still recognized on its western façade), it acquired its Gothic structure in the th century, a period of great leipzigoise prosperity. Today, it is mainly a Gothic church with a single tower and soaring windows. But its interior, despite the Gothic structure structure, appears as a festival of the Aufklärung, a realization of metaphorical aesthetics aimed at expressing a highly philosophical content, that of the research of the Démiurge, the elevation of men to the sky. This unique, unbelievable interior in the rest of Germany was built between 1784 and 1797 in the evolution of Enlightenment architecture; its columns of palm trees combined with the ceiling carved into square cells, each containing a different square with a flower in its centre bear an aesthetic highly stigmatised. The best is to enter, sit down and contemplate this very remarkable, almost alive decor while everything is immobile. In 2004, this first-class interior has been completely restored, adding green and pink colours to the turbulent truculent of the décor. If the rose has been challenged by many purists, the white of the columns now confer even more majesty than before.

The other remarkable element of Nikolaikirche is its organ, which is of exceptional quality, one of the best in Germany. It was built in 1862 by the Orgelmeister Friedrich Ladegast, expanded and perfected in 1902 by company Wilhelm Sauer and beautifully restored in 1988 by the same company. The organ, which relied heavily on the romantic texture of Bach works in the th century, has an exceptional quality and gives rise to remarkable concerts, very frequent and often free of charge. It was here in the Nikolaikirche that Bach played for the first time his Passion according to Saint John in 1724.

Beyond its architecture, the Nikolaikirche, located in the heart of the city centre, is famous for hosting the first protests of the autumn of 1989. Since then, it has been a strong symbol of German reunification. Indeed, the famous "Events of Leipzig Monday" which, on 4 September 1989 at the Fall of the Wall, threw the people of Leipzig into the streets to protest against dictatorship, leading in their wake to many other cities, from Dresden to Schwerin, to the slogan of Marcin basile das Volk (We are the people), find their genesis in the sermons and prayers made at the Nikolaikirche. From the early 1980 s, the church was illustrated by politicized Monday's sermons, claiming words less and less hidden from democracy, freedom of expression and respect for human rights. More and more explicit at the end of the decades, these Monday's sermons turned into a demonstration on Monday 4 September, causing rapid 100 000 people on the street. Today the church prides itself on being the starting point for the collapse of the GDR. The Friedensäule monument, a monument of the Nikolaikirchhof which takes over the ground of a church column, is dedicated to the participants of the peaceful demonstrations on Monday, erected in 1999.