Provost Church St. Peter und Paul, Medieval Catholic church in Bochum, Germany
The Provost Church St. Peter und Paul is a Roman Catholic church in central Bochum, first documented as a wooden chapel between 785 and 800. The present late Gothic hall church, rebuilt after a fire in 1517, has a 68-metre tower with a green copper spire. A transept, a five-sided polygonal choir and a sacristy were added between 1872 and 1874.
The church traces its origins to 785. Following a fire, it was rebuilt between 1517 and 1547, with sections of the earlier choir incorporated into the new construction.
The parish counted 32,000 members in 2008. Croatian and Polish communities attached to the church hold services in their own languages alongside the German Masses. Until the 1980s the church was a site of perpetual adoration.
The church stands in Bochum's city centre, its 68-metre tower visible from the surrounding streets. Entry is at ground level through the small gabled porch on the south side; the interior is reached without steps. Services are held in German, with separate Croatian and Polish congregations also using the building.
In 1881 the church was made a second-order trigonometric point and became the centre of Soldner coordinate system No. 33 for the Prussian survey, a role it held until such local systems were replaced by Gauss-Krüger coordinates from the 1920s. The 68-metre tower, Bochum's landmark, lost its stone balustrades and corner turrets in the Second World War.
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