St. Martin's Church, Parish church in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

St. Martin's Church stands on Rathausplatz, its pale stone tower with a steep pyramidal roof beside a polygonal chapel with salmon-pink walls and three tall pointed-arched windows. Inside, the bright nave is 65 m long and 17.50 m wide, covered by a flat wooden ceiling, with a vaulted choir and 14th-century wall-painting fragments.

Franciscans settled in Freiburg around 1226 and received the chapel of St. Martin, first documented in 1206, from Count Konrad I in 1246. The choir was finished in 1286 and the nave in 1318, with its north aisle wall bent to respect property lines. Bishop Tillmann of Basel reconsecrated the church in 1518.

The church is dedicated to Saint Martin, whose painted image from Freiburg Minster was placed here in 1975. Since 2009 the Dominicans have provided pastoral care, and the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic community of St. Josaphat also worships here, as several icons in the church show.

Entry to the church is free and the interior is easy to explore with all areas accessible on foot. Take time to look closely at the architectural details of the facade and tower when you visit.

The tower only dates from 1890–1893, when architect Max Meckel added it; until then the mendicant church had just a roof turret. Its neo-Gothic furnishings burned in the 27 November 1944 air raid, when the spire collapsed into the nave. The 1974/75 renovation replaced the flat pyramid roof with the steeper one seen today.